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English has been my pain for 15 years

antirez.com

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Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#191

Post by foobarbazqux »

doomlaser wrote: post #30

The recent frenzy of accent related Hacker News posts seems to reinforce the opinion I saw in a thread discussing the pg controversy: "Dear Paul, It's not what you are, it's what you did. At least, I hope. I suspect this is all coming out of a desire to emphasize that communication is important when you're starting a company. It's never just about solving technical problems. Well, sure, that's true. But as Nitasha ha…

Many institutions require people to pass TOEFL exams, so really how is PG's requirement any different?

He's only saying that speaking English at a high level of fluency is a requirement for his investments in an English-speaking program that he runs. Fluency means you understand others and others understand you. How many of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies have thick foreign accents?

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#192

Post by npalli »

crassus wrote: post #185
npalli wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would PG (or his predecessor silicon valley VC) have made the same comment about strong accents 30 years ago? I don’t think so. For one, the diffusion of Americanisms (idioms, accent etc.) were weaker and founders had stronger accents. It would be inconceivable to say this in public. To me this signifies, perhaps, a shift in the valley from investing in technology heavy companies toward more consumer branded companie…

Raising capital for a startup in a particular geographic place and selling a product there from a multinational megacorp are very different propositions. When you have the capital to hire an entire local sales division you're in a very different world than when you are trying to raise your first capital investment. But of course you knew that.

Ok. So when Groupon and Uber are expanding abroad with investor capital, is someone checking if their accent fits with the local population? Their entire international expansion has been funded by external investors not their own capital.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#193

Post by oscardelben »

coldtea wrote: post #77

> So starting from 1998 I slowly learned to fluently read English without making more efforts compared to reading something written in Italian. I even learned to write at the same speed I wrote stuff in Italian, even if I hit a local minima in this regard, as you can see reading this post: basically I learned to write very fast a broken subset of English, that is usually enough to express my thoughts in the field of…

So, for most people the most efficient learning aid is to spend a few years abroad. A teacher helps, but you need to talk with and listen to lots and lots of different people. There is no way you'll become fluent in a foreign language without spending time there, talking with people for multiple hours a day. Get a job abroad, and you'll get better quickly.

> Watching movies and tv series without subtitles also helps tremendously. In Italy this is even worse, because they don't just add subtitles, they usually dub the whole thing with Italian actors

Except that if you hear a word in italian you can look it up easily because it's written the way it's spoken. On the other hand, I still have a very hard time looking up a word I head in English.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#194

Post by adw »

toyg wrote: post #88
DanBC wrote: post #7

This is a great post. Here's a BBC Radio Four programme where Stephen Fry talks about spelling reform, and it includes a little bit about pronunciation. The brokenness of English is a problem we know about! ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039c5cs ) > The fact that people from different English speaking countries have issues communicating is already a big hint about how odd is English phonetically. It doesn't have…

> BBC used to have the excellent World Service programming. BBC radio programmes were also at the receiving end of a wave of political correctness sweeping through the Blair years. "Classist" Received Pronunciation was out, regional accents were in (mostly so that Scottish cronies could occupy civil-servant jobs and the likes of John Prescott could eventually become plausible Peers of the Realm, but I digress). The r…

RP isn't especially common at Oxbridge.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#195

Post by walshemj »

walshemj wrote: post #173
crassus wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dear Paul, The warm and fuzzy thought police department (WTFPD) would like to have a little chat with you. You see, we have taken down bigger game than you, and we could easily have you stuffed and mounted on our mantle. Instead of saying what you believe to be true, the WTFPD recommends that you say what we wish were true. Here at the WTFPD, our belief is that wishing hard enough for something will make it true. Su…

What Paul needed is some one to have taken his shovel away when we was up to his neck in the brown stuff instead of digging himself in even deeper.

Thought that would get modded down - guys if you went to any FTSE 100 DJA 30 HR director he would tell you exactly the same thing.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#196

Post by antirez »

coldtea wrote: post #77

> So starting from 1998 I slowly learned to fluently read English without making more efforts compared to reading something written in Italian. I even learned to write at the same speed I wrote stuff in Italian, even if I hit a local minima in this regard, as you can see reading this post: basically I learned to write very fast a broken subset of English, that is usually enough to express my thoughts in the field of…

Hi coldtea, I tried to study English more formally, to start at high school, but the level of English teaching is not great in Italian schools most of the times. I tried it again from time to time, but now the barrier is the free time. With a busy work and a family it really is not an option for me to spend another one/two hours to watch films and/or study English... probably a simpler approach could be to travel more, and instead of refusing all the invitations I get for confs, to attend more events where there are many English speakers. Your italian is still understandable :-)

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#197

Post by mjn »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #191
doomlaser wrote: post #30

The recent frenzy of accent related Hacker News posts seems to reinforce the opinion I saw in a thread discussing the pg controversy: "Dear Paul, It's not what you are, it's what you did. At least, I hope. I suspect this is all coming out of a desire to emphasize that communication is important when you're starting a company. It's never just about solving technical problems. Well, sure, that's true. But as Nitasha ha…

Many institutions require people to pass TOEFL exams, so really how is PG's requirement any different? He's only saying that speaking English at a high level of fluency is a requirement for his investments in an English-speaking program that he runs. Fluency means you understand others and others understand you. How many of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies have thick foreign accents?

The TOEFL doesn't have any kind of accent requirement, as would be clear by walking into any American university's science or engineering departments and speaking with the students who have top TOEFL marks. You do have to be comprehensible, but it's a fairly low bar. Nothing's held against a Russian or Chinese or German accent; in some areas they even have a little cachet (especially Russian accents in mathematics).

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#198

Post by subsystem »

crassus wrote: post #178
walshemj wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Paul needed is some one to have taken his shovel away when we was up to his neck in the brown stuff instead of digging himself in even deeper.

I admire him for sticking up for his principles[1]. You give the thought police and inch and soon they'll be back for another. There is no theoretical limit to how warm and fuzzy they can make the world. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Who is the really the "thought police" here? You're the one trying to ridicule people whose opinion you don't agree with while hiding behind some "warm and fuzzy" sarcasm.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#199

Post by foobarbazqux »

mjn wrote: post #197
foobarbazqux wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many institutions require people to pass TOEFL exams, so really how is PG's requirement any different? He's only saying that speaking English at a high level of fluency is a requirement for his investments in an English-speaking program that he runs. Fluency means you understand others and others understand you. How many of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies have thick foreign accents?

The TOEFL doesn't have any kind of accent requirement, as would be clear by walking into any American university's science or engineering departments and speaking with the students who have top TOEFL marks. You do have to be comprehensible, but it's a fairly low bar. Nothing's held against a Russian or Chinese or German accent; in some areas they even have a little cachet (especially Russian accents in mathematics).

Alright, so maybe PG would have some problems with these students leading YC companies too. But in principle, how is it suddenly discrimination because the bar has been raised to higher than "so thick that people struggle to understand you"? This is a very reasonable bar when it comes to hiring employees all across the country, especially for any kind of leadership or public-facing position.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years

#200

Post by crassus »

npalli wrote: post #192
crassus wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raising capital for a startup in a particular geographic place and selling a product there from a multinational megacorp are very different propositions. When you have the capital to hire an entire local sales division you're in a very different world than when you are trying to raise your first capital investment. But of course you knew that.

Ok. So when Groupon and Uber are expanding abroad with investor capital, is someone checking if their accent fits with the local population? Their entire international expansion has been funded by external investors not their own capital.

I'm sure that when they are striking deals with local politicians, regulators, and partners, they are careful to do so through representatives intelligible to the local populace.

The founders of both firms speak American english well and raised bunches of money in America, so language and accents were not a concern for them with regards to fundraising. Indeed, America is the best market in the world for raising speculative venture capital, so being comfortable with American English is a useful skill to have for entrepreneurs.

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