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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?

#31

Post by sanxiyn »

tomca32 wrote: post #19
Tade0 wrote: post #6

There was an idea in the 90s in Poland to have each and every computer/CS term have its native equivalent, but the ones proposed were awkward to say the least. To give an example: a mouse click was supposed to be called a "mlask", which directly translates to "a smack of the lips". Needless to say that didn't stick and nowadays only veteran programmers are even aware that such an attempt was made.

Same thing happened in Croatia in the 90s. Silly words were introduced and then people made up even sillier words to make fun of it leading to insanities like: - čigrasto pamtilo "peg-top-like memorizer" for a floppy disk - čigrasto velepamtilo "peg-top-like big memorizer" for a hard disk - stolno potezalo - "tabletop pull-arounder" for a mouse After a while, nobody was certain what was a real term and what was a jok…

I am not sure why that failed, but that's probably because I don't get Croatian nuances. In Korea disk is translated as "storage device" and it stuck. In general, you can make non-silly translation instead of silly translation, and non-silly translations do stick.

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

#32

Post by Vespasian »

wishinghand wrote: post #28
Vespasian wrote: post #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)

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.

Probably because github and stackoverflow write them in English ;)

Also there is no need to translate technical lingo if everybody understands it. More general IT terms are translated sometimes (e.g. hard disk = Festplatte, keyboard = tastatur). I'm sure a linguist could explain why it happens in some cases and not in others.

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

#34

Post by sanxiyn »

Tade0 wrote: post #6

There was an idea in the 90s in Poland to have each and every computer/CS term have its native equivalent, but the ones proposed were awkward to say the least. To give an example: a mouse click was supposed to be called a "mlask", which directly translates to "a smack of the lips". Needless to say that didn't stick and nowadays only veteran programmers are even aware that such an attempt was made.

What a failure. Try non-awkward translation, instead of awkward translation! "smack of the lips" thing is a failure of awkwardness, not a failure of translation.

In Korea "to click" is translated as "to press". Now, that wasn't difficult, was it?

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

#35

Post by qwerty456127 »

sanxiyn wrote: post #18
toolslive wrote: post #15

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.

I'm shocked too. Even if your language has all the necessary words it still seems unreasonable to me to avoid learning English if you are interested in IT. One of the reasons I'd mention: almost all of the adequately fresh information is in English. Original manuals are in English, StackOverflow is in English, HN is in English, English is the lingua-franca for comments and function/class/variable names (I've seen non-English source code some times but that's rare and feels weird). English is not my native language but I'm glad it unites ~99% of the industry and the science.

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

#36

Post by Vespasian »

kamyarg wrote: post #29
Vespasian wrote: post #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)

"Nein, Committe niemals in den Master."* Nice to see I can even practice German in HN. * Needless to say, excuse my (possibly) horrible German.

That sentence is perfectly fine

The "niemals" make it sound like you care very very deeply about me not committing to the master (and your are right of course)

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

#38

Post by kamyarg »

I think I can only echo most of the comments here that of course there are translations of "branch" "implementation" etc., but the norm is to adapt the English one to the language in my experience.

Good example is Turkish, there have been a lot of effort into deriving enough words to be able to converse in full Turkish about the CS topics or even Scientific topics, but it was not able to "satisfy the demand".

As an example, "feeding data to some service", there is a widely used "veri" for "data", and there is also translation of "to feed", "beslemek".

Sometimes when I hear "Servise veri besliyoruz"(We are feeding data to the service) I immediately think of someone feeding some kind of animal.

So in my experience talking to Turkish developers, if they are from a "corporate" environment, they are more likely to use these native words but people involved in startups etc. usually say "Servise Data feedliyoruz". (Generalising a lot here, I am sure they are a lot of exceptions)

Fun fact: Turkish actually derived a word for "to compute" to avoid confusing it with "to calculate", Although it is not used at all: "bermek". while the "calculating" is "hesaplamak".

In case you are interested(Turkish): http://user.ceng.metu.edu.tr/~ucoluk/yazin/berimsel_bir_dene...

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

#39

Post by Vespasian »

divbzero wrote: post #33

For those who discuss CS in their native languages, how many of you also name variables using your native language too?

It's really difficult for me and I hate to deal with code that uses native variable names.

Constantly Switching from English keywords, English resources and code samples on the Internet to local variable names adds a lot of cognitive load.

Some people do it though especially my co-workers with a background in mechanical or electrical engineering.

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

#40

Post by [deleted] »

Vespasian wrote: post #36
kamyarg wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nein, Committe niemals in den Master."* Nice to see I can even practice German in HN. * Needless to say, excuse my (possibly) horrible German.

That sentence is perfectly fine The "niemals" make it sound like you care very very deeply about me not committing to the master (and your are right of course)

[deleted]
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