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As a non-native English speaker, I have pretty strong feelings about English in engineering in general: everyone should just learn English. I see it as a remar

by lucian1900 13y ago

As a non-native English speaker, I have pretty strong feelings about English in engineering in general: everyone should just learn English. I see it as a remarkably good thing that engineering (and to some extent science) has standardised so much on English and I can only hope that all other walks of life will as well. It would be so nice if everyone on earth spoke excellent English.

speeder 13y ago
My dad (that is a excellent programmer, and tried very hard for 20 years already to learn english and failed) disagree with you.
- sabbatic13 13y ago
  And your dad's alternative would be what? To balkanize science and engineering? To create dozens of separate islands of knowledge? To slow the spread of knowledge, because everything deemed significant has to be translated to and from 20 languages to gain general currency? How is one or even a thousand persons' inability to learn another language an argument for how science should be practiced?
  - sdm 13y ago
    Science and engineering are already "balkanized" by language -- at least with respect to Mandarin, Russian, and German. I remember in uni taking "German for technical and scientific reading" courses just for that purpose. It make much more grow the communities than shut most people out because they don't speak English.
  - dwaltrip 13y ago
    The assumptions, the arrogance, the blame passing, the lack of understanding of contexts not your own... You are basically impling all non-english speakers should be so very ashamed that they are holding back broad human progress with their stupid insistency in continuing to use their native tongue. Which I find absurd. (Btw, I only speak English). As technologists, maybe we could find solutions that, ya know, don't force massive, life altering requirements on billions of people?
    - lucian1900 13y ago
      Not ashamed, they may not have had the resources or opportunity to learn English. But as flawed as the language is, it has won. It's not hard to speak at least two languages and one of them should be English. There is no solution as good as the whole world being bilingual.
lucb1e 13y ago
> As a non-native English speaker, I have pretty strong feelings about English in engineering in general: everyone should just learn English. As another non-native: ditto. Free English courses for Portuguese-speaking people would be more beneficial I think. (Why free? Well the Portuguese site is free too.)
marcosdumay 13y ago
I completely agree. But while people don't learn English (what takes years), they shouldn't just stop all their other learning.
- lucian1900 13y ago
  Sure, I'm not arguing against efforts to help people learn without English. But I do think such efforts should be seen as a stepping stone to the "real thing", which is the English-speaking community. My personal wish is that children be taught English early enough so that this doesn't become an issue. I am quite grateful I started when I was 5 or 6.

speeder 13y ago

My dad (that is a excellent programmer, and tried very hard for 20 years already to learn english and failed) disagree with you.

sabbatic13 13y ago
And your dad's alternative would be what? To balkanize science and engineering? To create dozens of separate islands of knowledge? To slow the spread of knowledge, because everything deemed significant has to be translated to and from 20 languages to gain general currency? How is one or even a thousand persons' inability to learn another language an argument for how science should be practiced?
- sdm 13y ago
  Science and engineering are already "balkanized" by language -- at least with respect to Mandarin, Russian, and German. I remember in uni taking "German for technical and scientific reading" courses just for that purpose. It make much more grow the communities than shut most people out because they don't speak English.
- dwaltrip 13y ago
  The assumptions, the arrogance, the blame passing, the lack of understanding of contexts not your own... You are basically impling all non-english speakers should be so very ashamed that they are holding back broad human progress with their stupid insistency in continuing to use their native tongue. Which I find absurd. (Btw, I only speak English). As technologists, maybe we could find solutions that, ya know, don't force massive, life altering requirements on billions of people?
  - lucian1900 13y ago
    Not ashamed, they may not have had the resources or opportunity to learn English. But as flawed as the language is, it has won. It's not hard to speak at least two languages and one of them should be English. There is no solution as good as the whole world being bilingual.

lucb1e 13y ago

> As a non-native English speaker, I have pretty strong feelings about English in engineering in general: everyone should just learn English. As another non-native: ditto. Free English courses for Portuguese-speaking people would be more beneficial I think. (Why free? Well the Portuguese site is free too.)

marcosdumay 13y ago

I completely agree. But while people don't learn English (what takes years), they shouldn't just stop all their other learning.

lucian1900 13y ago
Sure, I'm not arguing against efforts to help people learn without English. But I do think such efforts should be seen as a stepping stone to the "real thing", which is the English-speaking community. My personal wish is that children be taught English early enough so that this doesn't become an issue. I am quite grateful I started when I was 5 or 6.