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Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

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Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#81

Post by david927 »

aik wrote: post #65
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is just an excuse that will limit you. Apoligies if I am making a strawman or unfairly characterizing you, but lately I've been seeing a lot of "Get Motivated" stuff here and on reddit that is completely false. Sorry, but children do have the "language acquisition" device. I'm bilingual and learned both my languages during those golden years. My memory as a child is amazing, and I can name scene for scene the m…

Due to past research it has become accepted fact that children learn languages faster. However there has been a lot of research lately that has shown this to be false. So sorry I don't believe this is simply a motivational tool (however even so, belief that you innately don't have a particular ability often leads to self-limiting behavior). I agree though that a language learned at childhood more easily sticks with y…

That research hasn't yet made the grade. You'll constantly find articles that state "some linguists" are doubting the Critical Period Hypothesis [1], just as you'll find doubts for many hypothesis, but it's quite well accepted within the linguistic field. And if you talk to people that have been deeply exposed to language acquisition, like "drzaiusapelord" above (and ignore the spirited Redditors who went to Japanese class a couple times), you'll find that it holds. Language is fascinating and with immersion and other techniques can get to 99%. But if you didn't hear it and speak it at 6, you'll never get it like a native speaker.

Here's a great example: I worked in Berlin for a Jewish woman who moved to America when she was 5. She didn't speak any English, only German, at the time. When she came back to Germany at 15, she had to learn German from scratch (completely from scratch). She was 50 when I worked for her and her German was flawless, but my German friends said that she occasionally made the tiniest of mistakes which made it clear she wasn't a mother-tongue speaker. She didn't make such mistakes in English.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Period_Hypothesis

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#82

Post by einhverfr »

tpatke wrote: post #5

I think about Spolsky's post on programmer productivity quite often [1]. I think the most interesting part of the post is when he says, "The mediocre talent just never hits the high notes that the top talent hits all the time." Obviously, I wonder if I am a programmer who can hit the high notes and, if not, what it will take to get there. When I read a post like this, I try to apply it to making myself a better progr…

First as a disclaimer. I have ADD and will never be a great C programmer (I can hack, but my ADD makes it extremely difficult to get the consistency in results that C demands when doing bulk coding, but that's a topic for another time). I have done some C programming and I will do some more. However there are hard limits for me that a lot of other people don't have.

Now this being said, in the environments where I work, I have met a lot of top-notch programmers and a much larger number of mediocre programmers who crank out huge quantities of unmaintainable code. And of course unmaintainable code is contagious: if you work with it, the quality of your own code suffers.

And so I have come to a contrarian perspective on a lot of this.

The difference I think is that the top notch programmers tend to be interested in improving. There is nothing worse than reading through the SQL-Ledger codebase and realizing that despite some modest improvements in security over the years (though not enough IMO) the coding style has never improved (\%$form? Really? Still? And no 'use strict?' what will it take?). Instead they make up for a lack of self-improvement with extra brute force effort in things like testing and debugging.

So this leads me to conclude there are two fundamental types of programmers out there: brute force programmers (the majority), and those programmers who substitute quality of effort for quantity of effort.

The majority of programmers are mediocre and never hit high notes because they believe that what matters is how much time and effort they put into programming. The other programmers spend less time and effort coding, and more time and effort thinking about coding. They recognize that this is where the key investment lies, and that time spent here saves a lot of effort elsewhere.

One problem with programming is that you rarely get immediate feedback on the mistakes that matter---areas like style, clarity, maintainability, and elegance of design. It's only if you go back and question your ability in these areas can you improve. But time spent thinking about these things, going over past efforts and critiquing them, is time that is not spent programming.

I sometimes think programming should be learned first through an apprenticeship, then through journeyman programs where an individual learns from many accomplished programmers, and finally certified to take on students.

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#83

Post by btilly »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #60
paulhauggis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Kids at that age get the language in a way that you'll never get after." This is just an excuse that will limit you. Yes, kids might learn at a faster rate, but they also don't do anything else but learn that language for years. Most people have busy lives which doesn't allow for this unless they completely immerse themselves. As an adult, you also have the advantage of understanding difficult concepts (because you'…

>This is just an excuse that will limit you. Apoligies if I am making a strawman or unfairly characterizing you, but lately I've been seeing a lot of "Get Motivated" stuff here and on reddit that is completely false. Sorry, but children do have the "language acquisition" device. I'm bilingual and learned both my languages during those golden years. My memory as a child is amazing, and I can name scene for scene the m…

I had the most interesting demonstration of the reality of this language acquisition period in high school. I was friends with a family of Vietnamese immigrants. Their oldest was past puberty when they moved to Canada, their younger ones were pre puberty. The oldest and the parents learned English, but never lost their accents. You could not tell that their younger children were not born in Canada.

That said, perfect language acquisition is not impossible for all adults. My brother started learning Chinese at 20. He learned it so well that people he first talked to over the phone are sometimes confused when they meet him - they can't believe that he's not native Chinese. (But he's been having to work to lose his Taiwanese accent.)

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#84

Post by Too »

wallflower wrote: post #3

"Most people say it's easier to pick up languages when you're younger," says David Green, of University College London, who specialises in bilingualism. "But people can learn languages at any point in their lives. Being immersed in a language is important. Personality is a contributing factor too - not being able to tolerate feeling foolish from making inevitable errors will make learning a new language a difficult p…

An interesting perspective is putting in the years of learning. Say a kid realistically starts learning a language at age 4. Add 5 years and you end up with a 9 year kid. 9 year olds are not thaaat good at language.

Compare this with an adult that's been learning a completely new language for 5 years. As in seriously learning, dedicating at least one hour per day, 3-4 days per week. Plus living in the country, listening to radio, tv, etc.

I think the adult will win. Even if you compare with an older kid up to maybe 13 years old, but then it's cheating because that kid has been learning the language for more than 5 years, even if you increase the "start learning definition" to age 7.

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#85

Post by ak39 »

tpatke wrote: post #5

I think about Spolsky's post on programmer productivity quite often [1]. I think the most interesting part of the post is when he says, "The mediocre talent just never hits the high notes that the top talent hits all the time." Obviously, I wonder if I am a programmer who can hit the high notes and, if not, what it will take to get there. When I read a post like this, I try to apply it to making myself a better progr…

Spolsky is a wanker.

High notes, low notes who cares? The test of the acceptable programmer is in the works he/she creates. And to judge that requires answering the following:

1. Does the software do what it's supposed to do? 2. Does it do what it does efficiently?

That's it.

Forget wanting to belong to the legions of hallowed programmers who use the latest/best programming languages or frameworks.

No programmer hits a low note ... unless they want to. Those are not programmers but itenerant workers just filling in for the time-being. (Which could last 30 years. :) )

Ciao

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#86

Post by EricDeb »

tpatke wrote: post #5

I think about Spolsky's post on programmer productivity quite often [1]. I think the most interesting part of the post is when he says, "The mediocre talent just never hits the high notes that the top talent hits all the time." Obviously, I wonder if I am a programmer who can hit the high notes and, if not, what it will take to get there. When I read a post like this, I try to apply it to making myself a better progr…

Another thing to consider with Spolsky's student example is that there are a wide variety of experience levels in a programming class IME. I just finished 5 years of CS school (3 years undergrad, 2 grad), and I would attribute the variety in time it takes to complete a project mainly due to experience with the language/project type/etc.

There could be kids in the class with 2 years internship experience with the exact language on similar projects and those that have never programmed before.

Comparing professionals would be much more useful.

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#88

Post by lurker17 »

mkramlich wrote: post #63
WalterBright wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between lucky people and unlucky ones is that the lucky ones were able to recognize opportunity better. I've seen some research on this, but don't have a link handy.

i've come to view luck as preparation + opportunity. You can't directly make yourself "lucky" but you do have control over how much you prepare (study, practice, exercise, think, train, drill, paying attention to surroundings, planning for future, etc) and you can expose yourself to more opportunities by meeting more people, being more ambient, being social as well as analytical, watching community and industry news,…

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur

"In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind."

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#89

Post by silentscope »

ars wrote: post #73
silentscope wrote: post #36

"Education is the wisdom wrung from failure." I really couldn't disagree with this more. No doubt, failure is important in learning. However, to be educated or have an education, at the end of the day, you need to get something right. Personally, I don't learn by failing fifty times and never succeeding. I don't learn how to lose weight if I try fifty diets and never lose a pound. I don't learn how to talk to a girl…

You so completely missed the point that I wonder if you actually read it. You have to learn FROM the mistake. Learn what you did wrong, and don't do that again. Simply repeating your mistakes does nothing. Can you really try 50 diets and not know what doesn't work in a diet? Don't repeat the same mistake in each diet - that's pointless.

I suppose my point is: how do you know what's a mistake until something works AND doesn't work? Point counterpoint, right?
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