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English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

antirez.com

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Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#11

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #5
angryp wrote: post #2

I'd say security is his biggest pain. Redis is insecure by default[1]. 1. http://antirez.com/news/96

And you made an account just for that? That's a pretty low blow. Redis is insecure because it is designed that way , it is a powertool with a very specific role to fill and it comes with a very nice warning to that effect. If you use it in a way that's insecure the problem is yours, not redis'. Compare with cooks knives, powertools (drills, reciprocal saws and circular saws as well as fun things such as plasma cutter…

[deleted]

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#12

Post by jzelinskie »

gamesbrainiac wrote: post #4

> In my opinion one fact that made me so slow learning English is the fact that I started reading English without never ever listening to it. My brain is full of associations between written words and funny sounds that really don't exist in the actual language. Really good points on learning to speak before writing. Trying to learn japanese now, and I'm glad that someone told me to learn to speak it fluently before l…

Do you mean "write it fluently"? Are you just skipping out on memorizing kanji and their onyomi an kunyomi? Surely to learn to speak, you need to learn grammar and that grammar is taught from a written source. I feel like you get another level of understanding what's being said out loud if you can imagine the kanji. For example, you might not know that みる has multiple forms with slightly differing meanings depending on how it's used ( i.e. 見る and 観る ). Speaking and reading/writing our two very distinct skills that need to be individually practiced. However, they benefit each other and should probably be practiced in tandem to progress as fast as possible.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#15

Post by ekidd »

I sympathize, because I occasionally try to pair program in French, and yeah, it can be a struggle—and French spelling is far more rational than English spelling, despite the silent letters.

But if you're having trouble with listening comprehension, there's a fairly rapid way to improve that seems to work for many people: Watch lots of TV. A couple of years ago, I started buying DVD box sets in French, and just watching entire series straight through (both native French series, and dubbed US ones). My comprehension still isn't 100%, but it got a lot better, and I was pleasantly surprised when I started understanding a lot more people in Montréal, who tend to have strong accents related to European French speakers.

As a general rule of thumb, to improve a specific language skill (reading, listening, speaking), you're going to have to actually do a bunch of it. European programmers read a ton of English, so they can usually read it just fine. But unless your country shows a lot of subtitled US television, you're going to have much weaker listening skills.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#16

Post by petke »

Ever noticed how people from small countries in Europe often tend to speak English well, while people from big European countries dont? Think Sweden vs Italy.

Its mostly just a happy accident. You see, in small countries they usually dont dub movies or tv shows, simply because the market isn't big enough. They simply put subtitles on.

Subtitles fly past way too quick for young kids to read though. So young kids dont read but just listen, and automatically learn to understand English at home in front of the TV. By the time they get to study English at school, they already know how to speak it. English spelling is another thing though. Im still struggling with that.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#17

Post by Drup »

Being an academic, I often hang out with people of various nationalities, usually each with it's own english-based language, slightly modified by grammar quirks and foreign vocabulary. A linguist friend call that "international english", which I like quite a lot. After a while, you can play "guess the nationality" based on the grammar quirks.

And everyone is still easier to understand than Scottish people. :)

I got lucky in that I learned english not only by reading, but also by watching a lot of series (both american and british). Watching english series with english subtitles was a huge help for me, and I think it's a decent way to learn nowadays, much more effective than english classes.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#19

Post by frooxie »

tailgate wrote: post #3

As a native English speaker who is hard of hearing, I can echo his pain with phonetics. I learned most of English from reading and writing, and I say a lot of words incorrectly. People I am talking to that do not know me well often treat me as if I am retarded. I can imagine it is far worse for people like antirez.

English is my third language; I've read and written English almost every day for 30 years, but I've only ever spent two weeks in English-speaking countries. I sometimes find myself unable to pronounce words that I've used for decades in writing – often, it's the type of more formal vocabulary that doesn't often come up in movies or TV series. For instance: cuticle, paean, echelon, emaciated, heinous, comely, disreputable, hearth, dearth, contumely, beatify, subsequent, etc.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#20

Post by bshimmin »

Great read. This bit was especially interesting to me:

Still, guess what, nobody has issues understanding one of another region, or even from a Switzerland canton.

I learnt standard Italian (Tuscan) whilst I lived in Bologna, and achieved a reasonable level of fluency - though sadly quite rusty now, a decade later - but I really struggled with regional dialects, especially in Sicily and Venice. It's not just the differences in pronunciation: there are also vocabulary differences.

If it's any consolation, I understand that North Americans find Glaswegian quite challenging, especially when watching "Trainspotting" (eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc3E7UkIzt4).

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