6 ms·

There's no excuse for not knowing the English language, first as a 21 century citizen and secondly as a web developer.

by cliveowen 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- cliveowen 13y ago
  Nope, I'm Italian.
  - Casseres 13y ago
    Ethnicity ≠ Knowing a language (I don't doubt you, but you are asserting something that is not always true. I know Hispanics that don't know Spanish for example, because their parents never raised them bilingual.)
    - cliveowen 13y ago
      I wasn't raised as a bilingual either, I had to learn English just like most Europeans do, by trial and error.
mcphilip 13y ago
I downvoted you and am leaving this comment in hopes that those reading this thread don't get the impression that the entire HN community supports such a despicable outlook. I, for one, am grateful for all of the many important contributions to furthering computer science and its associated industries by non english speaking individuals.
- cliveowen 13y ago
  Do you ever stop and think that maybe if people were less lazy and started learning English things would actually improve? Information (including "important contributions to furthering computer science") would spread more rapidly, people would have access to an endless stream of news outlets and have a more detailed view of the world. Also, there won't be any need to waste money on translators (do you know how much money is wasted by governments translating official documents, bills and whatnot?). Do you have any idea of the abysmal quality of translation of the many textbooks that are used everyday by college students around the world? But yeah, I guess ignoring the lingua franca of the world and furthering the status quo is the easiest path.
  - nraynaud 13y ago
    you know that the biggest advances in Maths are made in japanese, russian and french, right? You know that english got a status of lingua franca only gradually, meaning that for a long time there was actually no reason whatsoever to learn it. And now the best one, you know that thanks to the US money sent to Israel, Palestine is voluntarily maintained a third world country by its neighbor who impairs any form of education (or other form of societal development whatsoever, like having a port, and airport, fishing, trading, traveling etc.) This guy learned some web stuff and some english (whose alphabet and spelling directions are different) while the most powerful nation in the world was sending obstacles (by which I mean missiles and bullets). I think he already did quite some homework.
    - cliveowen 13y ago
      Now, in the present, we live in a world where English is the dominant language (again, having a huge number of speakers it's a whole different thing) so, as a citizen, you have to adapt. Secondly, at a no point I said anything against this guy, he at least put in the effort and is commendable. My whole point was that thinking about resorting to translators instead of thinking about how to improve the number of English speakers is being narrow-minded. It's like saying: building a dam is hard, let's just keep the floods coming.
      - walid 13y ago
        Just because everyone on the web corrects everyone else, English is not the most spoken language in the world. It is the third most while Arabic is the fifth to my surprise: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_...
        cliveowen 13y ago
        Jesus, now I know why everyone is so lazy to learn a new language: you're lazy enough to not read a comment let alone learn an entire language. I already said it: yes, English it's not the most spoken language, but it's the dominant in that it transcends cultures and countries. Saying that Chinese is the dominant language because is the most spoken is like saying that ants are the most influential beings because they're the species most prevalent on earth.
raverbashing 13y ago
Yes, but Not everybody has access to good material and resources. Yes, the internet made this much easier. But it may be still difficult to "bootstrap" it English may be more difficult depending on your mother tongue It is frustrating when you want to say something in another language and even if you use Google Translate you're still not 100% sure. So I think he should have tried harder, but at the same time, it may be difficult for some people.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
joyeuse6701 13y ago
I can think of many. For example, you're unemployed, and live in a hostile environment (i.e. palestine). I however cannot think of an excuse for a support team who's native language is english to dismiss the possibility of a serious bug.
- cliveowen 13y ago
  If you have bombs flying over your head I doubt you spend your day hacking Zuckerberg's account. I concur with the second point.
claudius 13y ago
There’s no excuse for not knowing at least three out of English, Spanish, French, Mandarin, Urdu, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian and German. If you’ve finished university peeking at a fourth and fifth language can’t hurt either. How many do you know? Edit: Oh, and how about a bit of Latin and Greek, maybe?
- cliveowen 13y ago
  I do know English, Spanish and Italian and I'm doing my best learning Portuguese but that doesn't mean we should encourage a world divided by language barriers. I'd be happy to completely forget about every language, including my own native language, and having English as a universal language, it's called progress. There's no advantage whatsoever in having a fragmented world, and if the mess in my head is any indication the alleged advantages of bilingualism are just BS.
  - claudius 13y ago
    While it would certainly be convenient if everybody spoke the same language, I don’t think it would be better than the current state of affairs, where most people know two to three languages more-or-less well. After all, knowing more than one language does give you some different insights, not just into the culture of the other language but also into your own culture. Furthermore, there is a whole canon of classical works in basically every language which would likely lose some of its value if it were only accessible in the translated form. We can add to the last point by taking note that English is a particularly bad example of a ‘world-wide native language’. While its simplicity – both with regards to its vocabulary and its grammar – certainly helps when it is the second language of someone, such concerns are of smaller importance when you want it to be everyone’s first language: Such a language can come with a much stronger set of grammatical rules and nicer ways to build composite words and still be (roughly) equally accessible to its native speakers.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

There's no excuse for not knowing the English language, first as a 21 century citizen and secondly as a web developer.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

cliveowen 13y ago
Nope, I'm Italian.
- Casseres 13y ago
  Ethnicity ≠ Knowing a language (I don't doubt you, but you are asserting something that is not always true. I know Hispanics that don't know Spanish for example, because their parents never raised them bilingual.)
  - cliveowen 13y ago
    I wasn't raised as a bilingual either, I had to learn English just like most Europeans do, by trial and error.

mcphilip 13y ago

I downvoted you and am leaving this comment in hopes that those reading this thread don't get the impression that the entire HN community supports such a despicable outlook. I, for one, am grateful for all of the many important contributions to furthering computer science and its associated industries by non english speaking individuals.

cliveowen 13y ago
Do you ever stop and think that maybe if people were less lazy and started learning English things would actually improve? Information (including "important contributions to furthering computer science") would spread more rapidly, people would have access to an endless stream of news outlets and have a more detailed view of the world. Also, there won't be any need to waste money on translators (do you know how much money is wasted by governments translating official documents, bills and whatnot?). Do you have any idea of the abysmal quality of translation of the many textbooks that are used everyday by college students around the world? But yeah, I guess ignoring the lingua franca of the world and furthering the status quo is the easiest path.
- nraynaud 13y ago
  you know that the biggest advances in Maths are made in japanese, russian and french, right? You know that english got a status of lingua franca only gradually, meaning that for a long time there was actually no reason whatsoever to learn it. And now the best one, you know that thanks to the US money sent to Israel, Palestine is voluntarily maintained a third world country by its neighbor who impairs any form of education (or other form of societal development whatsoever, like having a port, and airport, fishing, trading, traveling etc.) This guy learned some web stuff and some english (whose alphabet and spelling directions are different) while the most powerful nation in the world was sending obstacles (by which I mean missiles and bullets). I think he already did quite some homework.
  - cliveowen 13y ago
    Now, in the present, we live in a world where English is the dominant language (again, having a huge number of speakers it's a whole different thing) so, as a citizen, you have to adapt. Secondly, at a no point I said anything against this guy, he at least put in the effort and is commendable. My whole point was that thinking about resorting to translators instead of thinking about how to improve the number of English speakers is being narrow-minded. It's like saying: building a dam is hard, let's just keep the floods coming.
    - walid 13y ago
      Just because everyone on the web corrects everyone else, English is not the most spoken language in the world. It is the third most while Arabic is the fifth to my surprise: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_...
      - cliveowen 13y ago
        Jesus, now I know why everyone is so lazy to learn a new language: you're lazy enough to not read a comment let alone learn an entire language. I already said it: yes, English it's not the most spoken language, but it's the dominant in that it transcends cultures and countries. Saying that Chinese is the dominant language because is the most spoken is like saying that ants are the most influential beings because they're the species most prevalent on earth.

raverbashing 13y ago

Yes, but Not everybody has access to good material and resources. Yes, the internet made this much easier. But it may be still difficult to "bootstrap" it English may be more difficult depending on your mother tongue It is frustrating when you want to say something in another language and even if you use Google Translate you're still not 100% sure. So I think he should have tried harder, but at the same time, it may be difficult for some people.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

joyeuse6701 13y ago

I can think of many. For example, you're unemployed, and live in a hostile environment (i.e. palestine). I however cannot think of an excuse for a support team who's native language is english to dismiss the possibility of a serious bug.

cliveowen 13y ago
If you have bombs flying over your head I doubt you spend your day hacking Zuckerberg's account. I concur with the second point.

claudius 13y ago

There’s no excuse for not knowing at least three out of English, Spanish, French, Mandarin, Urdu, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian and German. If you’ve finished university peeking at a fourth and fifth language can’t hurt either. How many do you know? Edit: Oh, and how about a bit of Latin and Greek, maybe?

cliveowen 13y ago
I do know English, Spanish and Italian and I'm doing my best learning Portuguese but that doesn't mean we should encourage a world divided by language barriers. I'd be happy to completely forget about every language, including my own native language, and having English as a universal language, it's called progress. There's no advantage whatsoever in having a fragmented world, and if the mess in my head is any indication the alleged advantages of bilingualism are just BS.
- claudius 13y ago
  While it would certainly be convenient if everybody spoke the same language, I don’t think it would be better than the current state of affairs, where most people know two to three languages more-or-less well. After all, knowing more than one language does give you some different insights, not just into the culture of the other language but also into your own culture. Furthermore, there is a whole canon of classical works in basically every language which would likely lose some of its value if it were only accessible in the translated form. We can add to the last point by taking note that English is a particularly bad example of a ‘world-wide native language’. While its simplicity – both with regards to its vocabulary and its grammar – certainly helps when it is the second language of someone, such concerns are of smaller importance when you want it to be everyone’s first language: Such a language can come with a much stronger set of grammatical rules and nicer ways to build composite words and still be (roughly) equally accessible to its native speakers.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]