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You want to learn Mandarin to talk to people who cannot speak the languages you know, or because you’re interested in Chinese culture/history. You learn math b

You want to learn Mandarin to talk to people who cannot speak the languages you know, or because you’re interested in Chinese culture/history. You learn math because you want to be able to quantify scientific questions, or because you want to dig deep into quantitative logic for its own sake. But what if you want to do something else? Such as getting to know your spouse, children or friends better. What if you simply want to make music? I would say, then do that instead of learning math! All this blog post highlights is that you should have a strong and clear learning goal, because if you’re learning Mandarin because it might seem useful on vacation to China, you might be spending your time inefficiently. The idea of teaching children math as a language from day one is an interesting concept though. But even that still comes down to: start giving your kids amazing skills that you think will give them a fulfilling and good life from day one. Well yea, of course.

jm__87 7y ago
All this blog post highlights is that you should have a strong and clear learning goal, because if you’re learning Mandarin because it might seem useful on vacation to China, you might be spending your time inefficiently. I'm not sure if you're saying you agree with this, but I certainly do not. What if you just wanted to learn a language because you find learning a new language enjoyable? I've spent the past year learning another language with absolutely no end goal in mind of what I would do with it - I just find it to be a fun challenge. It's just a hobby.
- khuey 7y ago
  "My hobby is X and I want to be better at it" seems like a pretty strong and clear goal to me.
  - jm__87 7y ago
    Not really, though. I build software for a living. If I told my boss "we should make X better" they would probably want to know in what way will X be better, how much better do I want it to be, what will we gain from these improvements and approximately how long will it take me to make the improvements. That is, there should be a clear goal in mind that fits in to the bigger picture with a rough estimate of cost associated to determine if this task is worth undertaking. For my hobby, I don't do any of this analysis. I attend a class every week and outside of class, I practice daily. I don't ask myself if it is time and money well spent, I don't have an end goal in mind (aside from the vague goal of "learning another language") or any idea how this fits in to some bigger picture. I just do it because I enjoy it. If I did all the same sort of analysis that I do at work in the context of my broader life goals, my bet is that I probably would come to the conclusion that learning this language is a waste of my time. But, what is the point of living if you spend 100% of your time achieving goals and none of your time enjoying your life. Thus, I spend time on hobbies outside of work.
    - jodrellblank 7y ago
      If you went down that route, wouldn’t you include “enjoyment” as a goal, as a way your life would be “better”, and so that would get taken into account in your analysis?
      - jm__87 7y ago
        Usually most people set goals that require some level of effort and/or self discipline over a longer period of time. I suppose you don't have to do this, but this is usually the standard reason for setting goals - so you can accomplish something you otherwise wouldn't if you didn't give it some special attention. Most people do things they enjoy by default - you only need to make some time for it, you don't really need to set a goal to do it.
        spaced-out 7y ago
        >Usually most people set goals that require some level of effort and/or self discipline over a longer period of time. You mean like attending a class every week and practicing daily?
        jm__87 7y ago
        Yeah, so this is kind of my point, actually. I like my hobbies, so they don't really require much effort and self discipline to engage in daily. If I don't have time to study one day, I don't beat myself up over it. It is just sort of my default thing to do when I have free time. As another example, I also read fiction. I don't set goals like "I want to read X number of chapters this week" or "I want to read for X hours this week", nor do I track how much time I spend on it. It is purely for enjoyment, it doesn't matter.
    - Chyzwar 7y ago
      In general learning foreign languages is useful for getting better in programming. It is possible that as a programmer you would get naturally attracted to such hobby.
  - ordu 7y ago
    It reminds me a discussion with a group of students claiming that Max Weber was right saying that maximizing profits could explain human behaviour. I kept inventing more and more examples of behaviour that couldn't be explained by a pursuit of profit, and students replied on each with widening of their definition of a profit. Finally we came to a such definition that allowed any behaviour and explained nothing. I suspect that the same could be done with your idea of a strong and clear goal.
- mettamage 7y ago
  > What if you just wanted to learn a language because you find learning a new language enjoyable? Yep, awesome but according to the post they shouldn’t. They should learn math because it is more useful. That is my issue with the post. Math is not more useful necessarily, because it depends on how you perceive life. One’s perspective on life tells how useful things are.
asdkhadsj 7y ago
> start giving your kids amazing skills that you think will give them a fulfilling and good life from day one. Well yea, of course. You'd think "well yea, of course" but man do I feel parents rarely do that. The majority, and I really do think the majority, seem to be content just doing nothing with the most valuable years of the childs life. Perhaps I take that too seriously, but I don't think so. I feel that is one of our largest failings as a society. That and failing to encourage learning, lessons from past mistakes, self growth, etc etc.
- mrmonkeyman 7y ago
  The first few are not the most valuable. Sorry.
- finaliteration 7y ago
  > just doing nothing with the most valuable years of the childs life I was pushed pretty hard as a kid and I’m not a very happy adult even though I excelled academically and have a lot of “skills”. All of that pushing made me constantly criticize myself and I still push myself way too hard and feel like I’m never good enough. As a parent, sometimes I think it’s best to do “nothing” and let my kid enjoy her childhood and do childish things without an enormous amount of pressure to develop all of these skills and “get ahead”. Kids need time to have a carefree life for awhile without adults constantly dumping pressure on them to be prepared for adult life by the time they are five years old.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    I definitely agree that having too many "skills" pushed on someone earlier can sometimes lead to self-criticism and other maladaptive behaviors. I tend to think that parents should present to their children as many different potential things to learn and excel at, but allow the children to drive themselves towards what interests them. Parents can then guide them accordingly. But the child should still feel themselves in control. Sort of like when Tibetan Buddhists find the next Lama- they have the candidate choose an item from the predecessor's possessions.
robertAngst 7y ago
>The idea of teaching children math as a language from day one is an interesting concept though. How and how young? I have a newborn I'm teaching numbers.
- baq 7y ago
  Keep in mind that a child’s brain is incapable of leaning certain things before it develops enough. While hard and tedious repetition may seem to work, opportunity cost is horrendous.
- itronitron 7y ago
  You are going to burn yourself out real quick. Just give them a handful of cheerios and let them figure out counting for themselves.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    My last kid is off to college as a pre med major in about 6 weeks. I basically did the opposite of all of the hard charging, teach your children everything, get your children ahead things that you see promoted here on HN. Mine were free range and breaking bones and getting deathly sick and etc etc etc. But you know what? None of it killed them. They found things they were interested in, and curiosity did the rest. They just had the regular problems. Girls used to be involved in petty high school dramas that would make Shakespeare look stoic for instance. But all in all, they turned out well. I really feel bad for the children of some of the people I see posting on HN regarding child dev.
dheera 7y ago
I disagree with this machine-like optimization of human life. We are not machines running OSes allocating time. Learning an instrument will help your brain in math. Learning any form of mindfulness will make you think more clearly and work efficiently. Learning languages will help you understand people and build connections and develop your brain in general.
- darkerside 7y ago
  You're free to disagree of course, but you should at least consider that you may be wrong. Perhaps we are machines running OSes allocating time (on wetware, not hardware). Or at least, maybe that's a useful way to think about how we spend our time.
  - kaycebasques 7y ago
    I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll pretend to consider that I may be wrong, if you also pretend to consider that you may be wrong. Both knowing that neither are actually likely to consider anything of the sort.
    - darkerside 7y ago
      I'm actually more than happy to consider any substantive contrary argument, but I didn't detect one in there. Even pretending to advocate for the mindset you describe is unproductive and even destructive. People reconsider viewpoints all the time.
      - kaycebasques 7y ago
        I was being snarky because I found your comment arrogant. If you think that the analogy is useful, then I’d have no problem if you left a comment along the lines of “I find the wetware analogy useful.” But what you said is “you should change your mind” without providing any substance about why it’s a useful perspective or why you’re entitled to tell someone else to change their mind.
nestorherre 7y ago
> start giving your kids amazing skills that you think will give them a fulfilling and good life from day one. Well yea, of course. Definitely going to apply this to my kids, and I wish my parents did this with me on a broader space. They sent me to english classes every saturday for a lot of years (from 7 to 15 or so), and even though I hated it at the time, I'm grateful that they did because it's definitely a plus in my life nowadays. (I'm from South America, most people don't speak english or have a below mid proficiency level).

jm__87 7y ago

All this blog post highlights is that you should have a strong and clear learning goal, because if you’re learning Mandarin because it might seem useful on vacation to China, you might be spending your time inefficiently. I'm not sure if you're saying you agree with this, but I certainly do not. What if you just wanted to learn a language because you find learning a new language enjoyable? I've spent the past year learning another language with absolutely no end goal in mind of what I would do with it - I just find it to be a fun challenge. It's just a hobby.

khuey 7y ago
"My hobby is X and I want to be better at it" seems like a pretty strong and clear goal to me.
- jm__87 7y ago
  Not really, though. I build software for a living. If I told my boss "we should make X better" they would probably want to know in what way will X be better, how much better do I want it to be, what will we gain from these improvements and approximately how long will it take me to make the improvements. That is, there should be a clear goal in mind that fits in to the bigger picture with a rough estimate of cost associated to determine if this task is worth undertaking. For my hobby, I don't do any of this analysis. I attend a class every week and outside of class, I practice daily. I don't ask myself if it is time and money well spent, I don't have an end goal in mind (aside from the vague goal of "learning another language") or any idea how this fits in to some bigger picture. I just do it because I enjoy it. If I did all the same sort of analysis that I do at work in the context of my broader life goals, my bet is that I probably would come to the conclusion that learning this language is a waste of my time. But, what is the point of living if you spend 100% of your time achieving goals and none of your time enjoying your life. Thus, I spend time on hobbies outside of work.
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    If you went down that route, wouldn’t you include “enjoyment” as a goal, as a way your life would be “better”, and so that would get taken into account in your analysis?
    - jm__87 7y ago
      Usually most people set goals that require some level of effort and/or self discipline over a longer period of time. I suppose you don't have to do this, but this is usually the standard reason for setting goals - so you can accomplish something you otherwise wouldn't if you didn't give it some special attention. Most people do things they enjoy by default - you only need to make some time for it, you don't really need to set a goal to do it.
      - spaced-out 7y ago
        >Usually most people set goals that require some level of effort and/or self discipline over a longer period of time. You mean like attending a class every week and practicing daily?
        jm__87 7y ago
        Yeah, so this is kind of my point, actually. I like my hobbies, so they don't really require much effort and self discipline to engage in daily. If I don't have time to study one day, I don't beat myself up over it. It is just sort of my default thing to do when I have free time. As another example, I also read fiction. I don't set goals like "I want to read X number of chapters this week" or "I want to read for X hours this week", nor do I track how much time I spend on it. It is purely for enjoyment, it doesn't matter.
  - Chyzwar 7y ago
    In general learning foreign languages is useful for getting better in programming. It is possible that as a programmer you would get naturally attracted to such hobby.
- ordu 7y ago
  It reminds me a discussion with a group of students claiming that Max Weber was right saying that maximizing profits could explain human behaviour. I kept inventing more and more examples of behaviour that couldn't be explained by a pursuit of profit, and students replied on each with widening of their definition of a profit. Finally we came to a such definition that allowed any behaviour and explained nothing. I suspect that the same could be done with your idea of a strong and clear goal.
mettamage 7y ago
> What if you just wanted to learn a language because you find learning a new language enjoyable? Yep, awesome but according to the post they shouldn’t. They should learn math because it is more useful. That is my issue with the post. Math is not more useful necessarily, because it depends on how you perceive life. One’s perspective on life tells how useful things are.

asdkhadsj 7y ago

> start giving your kids amazing skills that you think will give them a fulfilling and good life from day one. Well yea, of course. You'd think "well yea, of course" but man do I feel parents rarely do that. The majority, and I really do think the majority, seem to be content just doing nothing with the most valuable years of the childs life. Perhaps I take that too seriously, but I don't think so. I feel that is one of our largest failings as a society. That and failing to encourage learning, lessons from past mistakes, self growth, etc etc.

mrmonkeyman 7y ago
The first few are not the most valuable. Sorry.
finaliteration 7y ago
> just doing nothing with the most valuable years of the childs life I was pushed pretty hard as a kid and I’m not a very happy adult even though I excelled academically and have a lot of “skills”. All of that pushing made me constantly criticize myself and I still push myself way too hard and feel like I’m never good enough. As a parent, sometimes I think it’s best to do “nothing” and let my kid enjoy her childhood and do childish things without an enormous amount of pressure to develop all of these skills and “get ahead”. Kids need time to have a carefree life for awhile without adults constantly dumping pressure on them to be prepared for adult life by the time they are five years old.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  I definitely agree that having too many "skills" pushed on someone earlier can sometimes lead to self-criticism and other maladaptive behaviors. I tend to think that parents should present to their children as many different potential things to learn and excel at, but allow the children to drive themselves towards what interests them. Parents can then guide them accordingly. But the child should still feel themselves in control. Sort of like when Tibetan Buddhists find the next Lama- they have the candidate choose an item from the predecessor's possessions.

robertAngst 7y ago

>The idea of teaching children math as a language from day one is an interesting concept though. How and how young? I have a newborn I'm teaching numbers.

baq 7y ago
Keep in mind that a child’s brain is incapable of leaning certain things before it develops enough. While hard and tedious repetition may seem to work, opportunity cost is horrendous.
itronitron 7y ago
You are going to burn yourself out real quick. Just give them a handful of cheerios and let them figure out counting for themselves.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  My last kid is off to college as a pre med major in about 6 weeks. I basically did the opposite of all of the hard charging, teach your children everything, get your children ahead things that you see promoted here on HN. Mine were free range and breaking bones and getting deathly sick and etc etc etc. But you know what? None of it killed them. They found things they were interested in, and curiosity did the rest. They just had the regular problems. Girls used to be involved in petty high school dramas that would make Shakespeare look stoic for instance. But all in all, they turned out well. I really feel bad for the children of some of the people I see posting on HN regarding child dev.

dheera 7y ago

I disagree with this machine-like optimization of human life. We are not machines running OSes allocating time. Learning an instrument will help your brain in math. Learning any form of mindfulness will make you think more clearly and work efficiently. Learning languages will help you understand people and build connections and develop your brain in general.

darkerside 7y ago
You're free to disagree of course, but you should at least consider that you may be wrong. Perhaps we are machines running OSes allocating time (on wetware, not hardware). Or at least, maybe that's a useful way to think about how we spend our time.
- kaycebasques 7y ago
  I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll pretend to consider that I may be wrong, if you also pretend to consider that you may be wrong. Both knowing that neither are actually likely to consider anything of the sort.
  - darkerside 7y ago
    I'm actually more than happy to consider any substantive contrary argument, but I didn't detect one in there. Even pretending to advocate for the mindset you describe is unproductive and even destructive. People reconsider viewpoints all the time.
    - kaycebasques 7y ago
      I was being snarky because I found your comment arrogant. If you think that the analogy is useful, then I’d have no problem if you left a comment along the lines of “I find the wetware analogy useful.” But what you said is “you should change your mind” without providing any substance about why it’s a useful perspective or why you’re entitled to tell someone else to change their mind.

nestorherre 7y ago

> start giving your kids amazing skills that you think will give them a fulfilling and good life from day one. Well yea, of course. Definitely going to apply this to my kids, and I wish my parents did this with me on a broader space. They sent me to english classes every saturday for a lot of years (from 7 to 15 or so), and even though I hated it at the time, I'm grateful that they did because it's definitely a plus in my life nowadays. (I'm from South America, most people don't speak english or have a below mid proficiency level).