Writing
I really enjoy writing Turkish. It has a very formalized tone and grammar. The most fun part is stitching together really long words by using suffixes. Speaking for me is kind of a tongue-twister, and I have a lot more trouble with the word order and organization.
Longest Frankenword created to date:
konuşmayabilirdi
“she was unable to converse”
I was proud of that one.
Most of the time, when you ask someone how to say something non-trivial and give them the English, they pause for a moment and say, “Well, we don’t say it like that. You should use…” This seems to be the joy of going outside your native language family.
I definitely agree that any native speaker would think their language is far more expressive than would someone coming in from the outside. I will say that I have a very trustworthy native speaking Turk who prefers English to Turkish for precision of expression. But that’s an isolated case. I’m sure Orhan Pamuk would have something different to say.