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Ask HN: Can you discuss CS in your native language?

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Re: Ask HN: Can you discuss CS in your native language?

#21
Yes, I talk (almost) exclusively German to my co workers / friends etc.

However a lot of CS specific English terms are used and adapted to fit German grammar.

Example:

Committest du in den Master oder hast du einen neuen Branch angelegt? (Are you comitting into the master branch or did you create a new one)

Re: Ask HN: Can you discuss CS in your native language?

#22

I can recall in 1998 I was studying in Germany, taking a semester break from my CS studies. For the fun of it, I checked out the books being used by the CS program - all the textbooks were in English, and I then learned that in that program, most of the classes themselves were conducted in English as well. I know since then that English has become common in courses in many universities in Germany, but at the time it…

I studied CS from 2011 to 2017 in Germany. Generally all the CS terms are in English, while a lot of the theory (everything math related) or Phyiscs is taught in German. The more you progress into in-depth courses (e.g. master seminars, later lectures on database management) it is more likely to have English lectures, materials, etc.

Generally I would say you discuss CS with other Germans in German. You just treat it like any other professional terminology like medical jargon or Biology.

Re: Ask HN: Can you discuss CS in your native language?

#23
Heh, this is fun. I learned a lot about functional programming while studying in Germany, so my first exposure to a lot of words was German. But they are mostly small adaptations of the English terms (monad == die Monade) anyway.

Fun fact: the professor taught the whole lecture in German but wrote definitions in English on the board (while simultaneously speaking German).

Re: Ask HN: Can you discuss CS in your native language?

#24

I often use English CS terms prefixed/suffixed for Russian inflection embedded in a grammatically correct Russian sentence. (Russian is very flexible at adopting foreign roots within in its grammatical framework.) There are "official" Russian translations of most CS terminology, but they often feel too long, too formal for casual conversation, or sometimes even too ambiguous.

This is a common theme in this thread, but I opine using English loanwords in Russian sentences IS using Russian, not using English. I am not sure why anyone thinks otherwise.

English loanwords in Korean are Korean words, not English words. They get Korean affixes. For example, methods are called 메소드 in Korean, but only as a programming term. Methods are otherwise translated as 방법. Therefore, word "method" in English and word "메소드" in Korean are completely different words, even if they share the origin and pronunciation. English word have normal non-programming meaning, Korean word does not.

Re: Ask HN: Can you discuss CS in your native language?

#25
post #18

I'm Flemish, so I speak Dutch. Since it's a small language, at university, most advanced courses used English (or French) books. There are a lot of concepts I cannot even start to explain in Dutch. I just don't have the vocabulary. I also was really shocked to learn later that there are programmers who don't speak English: I once interviewed a French developer who didn't know any English. He explained me that all his…

Why are you shocked? In fact I am shocked you are shocked.

Because most of the CS/CEng content is in English, not knowing english is a huge disadvantage.

Now I am shocked that you are shocked that s/he is shocked.

Re: Ask HN: Can you discuss CS in your native language?

#26

Yes, I talk (almost) exclusively German to my co workers / friends etc. However a lot of CS specific English terms are used and adapted to fit German grammar. Example: Committest du in den Master oder hast du einen neuen Branch angelegt? (Are you comitting into the master branch or did you create a new one)

As someone who grew up bilingual German/English this is really hard for me, I end up getting really confused while speaking (in German) about technical to-I a because I’m never sure which words have been “eingedeutscht” and which haven’t.

So I try to do in English and end up speaking Denglish instead. :). A personal failing of course, but amusing.

Re: Ask HN: Can you discuss CS in your native language?

#27

Heh, this is fun. I learned a lot about functional programming while studying in Germany, so my first exposure to a lot of words was German. But they are mostly small adaptations of the English terms (monad == die Monade) anyway. Fun fact: the professor taught the whole lecture in German but wrote definitions in English on the board (while simultaneously speaking German).

I found that a lot of theoretical CS terms, especially the ones established before the 60s/70s will still use the German terminology. Or if you talk about algorithms, language theory, etc.

Compare that to newer concepts like distributed computing, HTML, etc. ⇨ Using English terminology

Re: Ask HN: Can you discuss CS in your native language?

#28

Yes, I talk (almost) exclusively German to my co workers / friends etc. However a lot of CS specific English terms are used and adapted to fit German grammar. Example: Committest du in den Master oder hast du einen neuen Branch angelegt? (Are you comitting into the master branch or did you create a new one)

I’m curious as to why master and branch are borrowed rather than translated. Those seem straightforward enough to translate. But then again, I don’t speak German and I’m not a linguist.

Re: Ask HN: Can you discuss CS in your native language?

#29

Yes, I talk (almost) exclusively German to my co workers / friends etc. However a lot of CS specific English terms are used and adapted to fit German grammar. Example: Committest du in den Master oder hast du einen neuen Branch angelegt? (Are you comitting into the master branch or did you create a new one)

"Nein, Committe niemals in den Master."*

Nice to see I can even practice German in HN.

* Needless to say, excuse my (possibly) horrible German.

Re: Ask HN: Can you discuss CS in your native language?

#30

Yes, I talk (almost) exclusively German to my co workers / friends etc. However a lot of CS specific English terms are used and adapted to fit German grammar. Example: Committest du in den Master oder hast du einen neuen Branch angelegt? (Are you comitting into the master branch or did you create a new one)

I’m curious as to why master and branch are borrowed rather than translated. Those seem straightforward enough to translate. But then again, I don’t speak German and I’m not a linguist.

I am a native German speaker and developer. Literally every resource I look up on the internet concerning my work I look up in English. I actually start thinking about my problems in English.

When MDN shows me content in German the first thing I do is switch to English to lower the cognitive load.

I can just speak for myself, but jumping back and forth between two languages is adding unnecessary cognitive load.

I also never ever heard someone talk about the "Meisterzweig" in a Git repository.

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