

Ask HN: How do non-English speakers learn programming? - coryl

A lot of the syntax and "grammar" of programming is based on English words and convention. Lots of commands, abbreviations, etc. are also English based.<p>How do non-English speakers learn programming? Is it harder for them? Does it matter at all?
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avmich
To use English seemed to be easier than to use native language. First you know
your native language. Then you need to learn programming. Programming uses
symbols which don't make sense - except as concepts in programming. So you
just learn that "while" is a loop with condition, and "print" makes letters
appear on the screen. "While" doesn't, for example, associate with time, only
with condition; "print" doesn't evoke images of a printing machines,
newspapers or anything else. No semantic confusion whatsoever; to the
contrary, if that would be written in the native language, it would
immediately bring associations, which may be unwanted.

A few comments to above. Some words are already used in the language, so,
knowing how a certain combination of English letters is pronounced, one still
gets some associations. "Function" is a rather international word, for example
(brought into English from another language?). Next, learning first some
programming helps with learning later English itself. For many words first
associations remain related to computers; e.g., "performance" (though not
widely used in programming languages, but it is used in technical manuals) is
first for a processor, not for an actor on the scene.

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tokenadult
This is one of the reasons I roll my eyes whenever my fellow Americans tell me
that the United States school system is doing just fine. People in the United
States are all too insulated from the reality of people in many other
countries having to learn everything we do, including literacy in a native
language, to make a living, AND having to learn English to a good standard of
literacy besides. Yes, people in other countries often take university-level
classes in a variety of subjects with the same English-language textbooks used
by American students at the best American universities. (There is, of course,
a thriving business in those countries of cram books of those subjects and
digests of those textbooks in the local language, and also many excellent
textbooks in the local language in many countries.) Moreover, a lot of people
in a lot of parts of the world converse in their parents in some historically
traditional language of their country, but do business and make jokes with
business colleagues in conversational English.

I'm an American who spent several years of my life learning Chinese, among
other languages, and who has lived in non-English-speaking places for about
six years of my life and worked for quite a few years in the United States in
translation and interpreting. It never stops amazing me how much people in
much of the rest of the world just roll up their sleeves and learn English,
after learning two or more other languages beforehand, to pursue their
personal goals.

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blj
It does not matter. I do not think English has anything to do with the ability
of programming. Not all native English speaker can code, similarly there are
many non-english speakers who are great programmers.

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coryl
Sure, but your reply doesn't really help to answer the question, "How do non-
English speakers learn programming?".

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ulfw
I learned English mostly by being a teen programmer. It helped a lot, gave me
a reason to become proficient in English as the whole ecosystem is obviously
in English as it's lingua franca.

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tanoku
We learn English first.

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eddie_the_head
I think you'll find this link very interesting, "Symbology, APL, and Chinese
Python" [http://clouddbs.blogspot.com/2010/09/symbology-apl-and-
chine...](http://clouddbs.blogspot.com/2010/09/symbology-apl-and-chinese-
python.html)

