3 ms·

One thing that is often gets unmentioned in "how-to-learn-x-in-y-days" discussions (whether x is a programming language or a "human" language) is that learning

One thing that is often gets unmentioned in "how-to-learn-x-in-y-days" discussions (whether x is a programming language or a "human" language) is that learning an (n+1)th language is a lot easier than learning your first (or in the case of human languages second) language. Not just because you discover patterns but also because you sharpen your methodologies - with human languages you'll know which is the best way for you to get a vocabulary (reading books? watching television? memorozing the dictionary?) etc., just like with a computer language you'll know which approach works the best for you (write a game? solve the problems on Euler Project? read the specification? or a book? or a combination of these?). Point is, if you know 10 programming languages well, you can definitely learn your 11th programming language in 90 days. Just like if you speak English, French, Spanish, Latin and German, you'll find learning Japanese a lot easier even though it doesn't resemble these languages at all.

ErrantX 16y ago
A friend of mine is learning his 12th and 13th languages right now; he'd probably call bunk on you're last paragraph. Or, rather, it is a lot easier to learn extra languages. But 90 days is not really possible if you want to learn the language to any useful degree. Certainly picking up Japanese would be hard in 90 days if all you had was romance languages. (note; there is a subset case of this where you can pick up a language that quickly by living in the country and being forced to learn it)
- DrJokepu 16y ago
  Yes, for "human" languages, it is probably more than 90 days. More like a year or two. (Learning a second language well can easily take 6-7 years.) I meant 90 days for programming languages. In my experience with foreign languages, first you struggle for a while and one day it unexpectedly "kicks in", suddenly you're able to comfortably use the language albeit not perfectly yet while the week before you was struggling to form simpler non-trivial sentences. Depending on your experience with foreign languages and the time you spend on learning the language, this can take from half a year to several years.
splat 16y ago
This is very true, and I think it's one of the reasons that Esperanto works so well as one's first second language. (I recall seeing one study where a group of students who learned Esperanto for one year and then French for three years ended up knowing French better than a group of students who studied French exclusively for four years straight. Not conclusive by any means, but suggestive.) By eliminating the complicated grammatical idiosyncrasies of natural languages, someone learning Esperanto can focus on learning how to learn a foreign language. If you've never learned a second language before, it's easy to memorize vocabulary and obscure grammatical rules, but it's extremely hard to make the transition from reading prose word-by-word to reading it fluently.
- tokenadult 16y ago
  it's one of the reasons that Esperanto works so well as one's first second language. The parent comment to your comment expressed the idea that ANY previous language aids learning the next language. This has been my experience, after learning elements of about a dozen languages, with proficiency in Chinese such that I can support myself through interpreting Chinese into English or the other way round, or translating from Chinese into English. For scientifically based information on Esperanto, see http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/ http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/
  - randallsquared 16y ago
    The parent comment to your comment expressed the idea that ANY previous language aids learning the next language. I think an unstated assumption was that Esperanto is much easier to learn than "natural" languages.
    - tokenadult 16y ago
      I believe you are correct about that being the unstated assumption, in regard to one of the comments above. My experience as a learner of multiple languages from several different language families is that Esperanto is not particularly easy, so I think the assumption is false.
j_baker 16y ago
I don't know that it's beneficial to think in terms of languages (at least in terms of programming languages). It's probably better to think in terms of paradigms. For instance, once I've learned an object-oriented language, I can pretty much learn any of them easily. The same is mostly true for functional programming languages (although some are admittedly more difficult than others). I could imagine natural languages are roughly the same way. For instance, I'd believe that learning another Romance Language would be easier after you've already learned one. Same for different variations of Chinese and Hindi.

ErrantX 16y ago

A friend of mine is learning his 12th and 13th languages right now; he'd probably call bunk on you're last paragraph. Or, rather, it is a lot easier to learn extra languages. But 90 days is not really possible if you want to learn the language to any useful degree. Certainly picking up Japanese would be hard in 90 days if all you had was romance languages. (note; there is a subset case of this where you can pick up a language that quickly by living in the country and being forced to learn it)

DrJokepu 16y ago
Yes, for "human" languages, it is probably more than 90 days. More like a year or two. (Learning a second language well can easily take 6-7 years.) I meant 90 days for programming languages. In my experience with foreign languages, first you struggle for a while and one day it unexpectedly "kicks in", suddenly you're able to comfortably use the language albeit not perfectly yet while the week before you was struggling to form simpler non-trivial sentences. Depending on your experience with foreign languages and the time you spend on learning the language, this can take from half a year to several years.

splat 16y ago

This is very true, and I think it's one of the reasons that Esperanto works so well as one's first second language. (I recall seeing one study where a group of students who learned Esperanto for one year and then French for three years ended up knowing French better than a group of students who studied French exclusively for four years straight. Not conclusive by any means, but suggestive.) By eliminating the complicated grammatical idiosyncrasies of natural languages, someone learning Esperanto can focus on learning how to learn a foreign language. If you've never learned a second language before, it's easy to memorize vocabulary and obscure grammatical rules, but it's extremely hard to make the transition from reading prose word-by-word to reading it fluently.

tokenadult 16y ago
it's one of the reasons that Esperanto works so well as one's first second language. The parent comment to your comment expressed the idea that ANY previous language aids learning the next language. This has been my experience, after learning elements of about a dozen languages, with proficiency in Chinese such that I can support myself through interpreting Chinese into English or the other way round, or translating from Chinese into English. For scientifically based information on Esperanto, see http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/ http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/
- randallsquared 16y ago
  The parent comment to your comment expressed the idea that ANY previous language aids learning the next language. I think an unstated assumption was that Esperanto is much easier to learn than "natural" languages.
  - tokenadult 16y ago
    I believe you are correct about that being the unstated assumption, in regard to one of the comments above. My experience as a learner of multiple languages from several different language families is that Esperanto is not particularly easy, so I think the assumption is false.

j_baker 16y ago

I don't know that it's beneficial to think in terms of languages (at least in terms of programming languages). It's probably better to think in terms of paradigms. For instance, once I've learned an object-oriented language, I can pretty much learn any of them easily. The same is mostly true for functional programming languages (although some are admittedly more difficult than others). I could imagine natural languages are roughly the same way. For instance, I'd believe that learning another Romance Language would be easier after you've already learned one. Same for different variations of Chinese and Hindi.