As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another language; 5 years in school trying to learn French + German, and can still only put together about two sentences. From what I remember, no one else seemed to really pick up the languages either.
>As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another language
I moved to Poland from the UK yonks ago, and have equally disastrous - if not worse - language skills as you.
Not long after arriving, I accidentally got a job at a startup, and I'd been led to believe everything was done in English internally: communications; client emails; heck, even variable names in the code, all was in English and I had nothing to fear.
This turned out to be a slight exaggeration; anything in English was the rare exception, rather than the rule.
You know what, though? Even without lessons and fully resenting Polish's grammar, you learn really quick. You also won't be facing this alone; as long as you're actually capable of getting the job done, plenty of local language speakers in your office will bend over backwards to encourage and help you.
Don't let language be the only thing holding you back. If I had my time again, I'd let things like bureaucracy and road safety guide my decision rather than what noises come out of peoples' mouths.
> even variable names in the code, all was in English
As a English-is-my-second-language person I can't imagine naming variables using any other language but English.
English is most of the times more concise than my mother language (Polish), and it is much easier to share code on the net, find help on stackoverflow, etc.
Say you're implementing a field-specific solution, do you use the US English term or the term that's written on the users know? (specs, documentation, etc)
If another developer comes on board, will their English be fluent enough to know those terms? There's also a huge risk in having a translation error. We're programmers, not translators.
For general variable names, I agree. On the other hand, in my experience, when the programmers aren't fluent enough in English, if English is imposed, they tend to choose really bad variable names and not comment their code properly. So I tend to impose clear names/doc over imposing a specific language.
In Poland it is generally assumed that a programmer knows English, most of the companies here are just branches of companies from other countries (not only US/UK based) and to communicate we use English as a common ground.
Another factor to consider is that if we write in language that has some constructs (e.g. C - if/then/else/while/return/int/double/class/void etc.) then writing:
if (znalezione) {
...
}
looks awkward.
Also one has to consider popular libraries and functions/methods/classes in them are English based, so this would add even more awkwardness to the code:
As I said, I'm not talking about the basics, but more especially for field-specific terminology, comments, etc.
I agree with you, but the example you gave is more common than you think. We tend to over-estimate people's language skills. (keep in mind, English is not my native tongue, I'm including myself in there and it's not meant as an attack, just something we need to deal with, and I would not outright exclude bilingual code)
One problem for a startup (as opposed to a consulting firm), is that you would eventually want to have geographically distributed offices and teams, though. So if you start with a code-base in something other than english and then end up opening an office in Ireland, Germany, Singapore or India you will likely end up rewriting into english anyways (never mind the Bay Area, Seattle or NYC, which you will likely need before your company reaches 10,000 developers...).
Some advocates of code "expressiveness" would like (or perhaps dread) a word with your lead... ;)
Joke aside, for anyone curious: we use such i, j variables for abstract logic like a counter (e.g. i=0 at the beginning of a loop, and gets incremented by 1 each time the loop runs), or booleans maybe (e.g. P=0 or 1, true or false). But generally it is considered good practice to give names to variables that are self-explanatory (e.g. studentName or vehicle_age) for readability and ease of understanding. Even counters and booleans should be significant when possible (e.g. "hasResponded" or "day_num").
On topic, I think english or not doesn't matter theoretically. Its cultural and indeed 80% of computing/code happens in english on earth (no source, waddayathink!). What matters imho is that semantics are correct (both human and machine language...) and reasonably meaningful to a collaborator.
To anybody wanting to know better: read open-source code. Best school there is, actual practice.
I can't imagine naming variables using any other language but English.
I spent some time as a consultant auditing other companies' software. Even with platforms where the coding-standards dictated the use of English, most of the projects I audited in Europe used the local language, rather than English - especially in variable names.
Admittedly there was a selection bias - I wasn't ever hired to audit perfectly good software - but it was remarkably common.
>>English is most of the times more concise than my mother language (Polish) [...]
If one were to pick Polish variable names, would the default be the neutral forms[1]? I'm sure this applies to other languages that also have forms of complex declension compared to English. Which would make more sense in Polish?
So, I still live in the U.S., but generally try to meet people abroad as often as possible while remaining in contact via Facebook, Snapchat, and WhatsApp.
While, personally, the U.K. and Sweden remain the most viable destinations if I were to move abroad, Poland isn't far behind in terms of the personalities of the people I've met, the scenery they've showed me, and the cultural/historical depth there. Obviously, take that with a truck load of salt since I've yet to visit.
Learning a language in school is different from learning it by yourself. School is force-feeding you everything, at a pace possibly not suited for yourself. You might even start disliking something you liked before because grading and tests sucks the joy out of things. If you, on the other hand, start to learn a language now you can get quite far in a reasonable amount of time (months). Its the difference between external and internal motivation.
Also necessity is quite a motivator and immersion helps tremendously. I'm terrible at teaching myself languages or learning them in school but can pick them up quickly when I'm living abroad where I am immersed in the foreign language and compelled to use it for daily interactions.
This is so true - I hated with passion all that was force-fed to us, for some reason particularly stuff in high school. The only exception for whatever reason for me were foreign languages, physics and history (probably because they were easier for me to learn compared to rest).
It took years to find surprising interest (even passion) in things like biology, geography, or literature for that matter (chemistry is still a big mystery to me, although basic principles seem trivial). Grammar in any language is is still a big no-no.
It might seem ridiculous but if you pick an expensive language course, that adds some proper motivation (with added value of good teachers/materials).
I did it in Japan. Picked up the language with decent enough fluency to handle my job and everyday conversation within 6 months of getting a girlfriend who didn't speak English. The trick to fast language acquisition is to put yourself in a situation where you need it to survive day-to-day.
Duo Lingo found that "sounding like a fool" is a big inhibitor to learning a language. With his wife, I bet your colleague didn't feel that embarrassment and could thus plow through and pick it it up.
To echo the sentiment of other replies here - I learned Mandarin (an incredibly difficult and tonal language) because I literally would have starved without it, and I became fluent in German in 6 months because of a woman. And I too spent years in high school learning Spanish and still lack the ability to construct basic sentences. It's all about the situation you're learning the language in.
Also from the UK and I have the upmost respect for anyone that can speak a second language. I find it incredibly difficult to get beyond a base vocabulary to actually being able to use the language without sounding like a cave man. I assume there'll be a "click" moment somewhere but its hard work getting there.
Incidentally, if you're sticking with Indo-European languages, once you're past the base vocabulary it gets easier, as the "complicated" words are more or less all the same:
telecommunication, Telekommunikation, Télécommunications/communication électronique, telecommunicatie, telecomunicación, etc.
Funny, I'm from the US and find it difficult to understand some of the accents from both North-Eastern Americans (ayy Boston) and some of the UK folks I've met (when they write exactly how they speak).
I'm non-native English speaker and find that I can understand the severely broken pronunciation of people from China or India, but many of the English accents from England are quite impossible. I can ask them to repeat over and over again, and can't understand a thing, and feel rather silly.
I'm a native English speaker with the world's most broadcast accent (the main Hollywood movie accent) and I'm a fan of Sherlock and Doctor Who. Those programs are produced with the most well known UK accents.
And yet I still have to rewind a few times in every episode for dialogue that I just can't decypher. Sometimes I never quite get the words.
Regarding language: you'll surprise yourself. You will have passable French within 6 months or less, and excellent French within 2 years or less, but during the initial 6 months your life will be hell. Your pronunciation will never be as good as that of the natives, though, but if your grammar is all right, no one but complete assholes will mind.
Your pronunciation can most certainly become native. The easiest path there is to immediately abandon all attempts to speak the language as if it is your own, and focus on the rhythm and intonation of the language. Also, pay attention to the shape of your mouth when speaking. I almost feel as if I have an entirely different voice when I speak French than I do in English. Focus on the sound and rhythm of the language as much as you focus on the vocabulary and grammar.
When I was first learning French 22 years ago, my teacher, an older woman who'd grown up and studied in France, shared a funny little joke about French women: their wrinkles start from the lips and spread outward across their face. This was said because they keep their lips far tighter, nearly pursed, than one does when speaking English. I've noticed and paid attention to how the French use their mouths when speaking ever since. It's been immensely helpful.
You are absolutely correct -- French speakers DO use their mouths differently than English speakers. Once I learned this in my Linguistics courses, my accent improved immeasurably.
The mouth is much more pursed, there are more sibilants, sounds either come from the very back of the throat or the very tip of the tongue.
It might help if you were immersed in it, as opposed to a small amount of time in school. But would you be able to function those first few months, that's the question.
I thought the same of myself until I actually tried. At 30 I started learning chinese full time for two years and eventually became fluent. It's possible, but you've got to take time off and dedicate yourself and immerse without using your mother tongue.
From my experience (as a french guys more interested in tech than literature) I really 'learned' spoken english by dating an UK girl (also joined a polyglot club: http://polyglotclub.com/, but living it was a real step forward, nothing compared to years of learning at school). That's the ultimate card up your sleeve to learn a foreign language.
Yeah, to learn a language you have to use it. School is a good start, but that's not usually how anyone progresses to the higher levels. Basically, you have to move to the country first and learn the language afterwards.
But yeah, English being the modern lingua franca is a major benefit to SV, London, etc.
I moved to France in 2007 and didn't speak the language, to do a math degree. It was fine. The first two years were rough, but after that I had no problems, and by the time I left in 2013 people regularly thought I was a native speaker.
The math/tech background helped a lot in the beginning. The texts there are more structured than normal, so you can get functional quickly without being conversational.
Moving there is the best thing that happened to me. Don't let the language discourage you from going anywhere. You'll struggle, and overcome.
European countries have signs in local language plus English. And then there is France, where even in Paris or even international places like Disneyland Paris you find hardly signs in anything but French. General joe also doesn't or doesn't want to speak English with you, you better speak a little bit French if you visit Paris.
Language lessons in school could be the least effective way to learn a a language. If you are own the ground using it, it is amazing how fast you can learn.
Language lessons are good at giving you the grammatical foundation you need to become literate. I agree that they're pretty bad for fluency in spoken language. To be fair, though, language classes are usually 3-5 hours per week, and you won't become fluent if you move to France or somewhere and only spend 3-5 hours per week trying to speak the language.
I took three years of German in high school and a semester in college. I could never get the der/die/das stuff to stick. Later on I started reading German fiction for fun and then I got frustrated because I know the verb but not who did what to whom and then I got a lot better in the grammatical agreement area quickly.
I have gone through many years of on and off anime fandom without formal schooling. When I do pick up a book about the Japanese language, I often think "that is obvious" or alternately realized I'd heard the phrase many times without understanding it.
