to which type of reasons do you refer to as a language learner when you make a language selection for learning?

General discussion about learning languages
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Re: to which type of reasons do you refer to as a language learner when you make a language selection for learning?

Postby jimmy » Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:40 pm

anitarrc wrote:


@Rdearman put it right.

Learn C, PLC programming etc.

you'll be fine.


many thanks

. Maths is universal. and don't worry about your IQ, these jobs keep it well trained
I am a mechanic and electronics engineer myself


I was just mentioning about the case , not really anything about my IQ :) :)

and ok. these advices has been taken.
(in case you would like to recommend books , please be informed that I welcome such recommendations (for C) )
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Re: to which type of reasons do you refer to as a language learner when you make a language selection for learning?

Postby rdearman » Fri Mar 17, 2023 11:52 pm

Actually, forget I said learn Python. It is rubbish. I have just spent 8 hours trying to fix all the f(*&^ing whitespace in a file. I could have re-written the entire program in C or Rust in the time it has taken me to got through a 600 line script and sort out all the bloody spaces!

What a crap programming language. Guido should be beaten with a shovel.
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Re: to which type of reasons do you refer to as a language learner when you make a language selection for learning?

Postby jimmy » Sat Mar 18, 2023 9:24 am

rdearman wrote:Actually, forget I said learn Python. It is rubbish. I have just spent 8 hours trying to fix all the f(*&^ing whitespace in a file. I could have re-written the entire program in C or Rust in the time it has taken me to got through a 600 line script and sort out all the bloody spaces!

What a crap programming language. Guido should be beaten with a shovel.


:) :)
haha ,I heard the converse case. In faculty one of my hodja was saying to me: jimmy do you know you have written more than 100 lines a program in force (Fortran) but this (the same result) can be run/compiled in python in just 4 lines.

anyway, may I ask a different question:

well, I am self taught (the other relevant wording is: "Autodidactic") .. but all in all I do need guidance in many cases. Both in language learning and/productions in which scientific contents may be used.
so , the question: do you believe that this is a type of a bit of "weakness"?

meanwhile, I still remember some for fortran program. I hope this will help. Now, I have a book of McGraw Hill and will probably read it.

Thanks.
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Re: to which type of reasons do you refer to as a language learner when you make a language selection for learning?

Postby rdearman » Sat Mar 18, 2023 10:05 am

jimmy wrote:haha ,I heard the converse case. In faculty one of my hodja was saying to me: jimmy do you know you have written more than 100 lines a program in force (Fortran) but this (the same result) can be run/compiled in python in just 4 lines.

Actually, this is a different thing, not a converse case. Python has more libraries and advanced functions, whereas Fortran is more basic. You have to write more lines of code in Fortran to get the same functionality.

My problem isn't the amount of code you have to write, my problem is that when there is a problem, you cannot visibly see the difference between a Tab, a space, 2 spaces, etc. You cannot SEE whitespace, therefore when you've copied something from somewhere else, and they used 3 spaces instead of 4 spaces, you have to find the problem, then you have to correct the problem taking huge amounts of time.

In C or Java, for example, things are delimited by visible characters. The end of the line is marked with a ; and it is easy to see when you've missed one!

Oh, and your 100 line Fortran program, or the 4 line Python program could probably have been done in 1 line of Perl. :ugeek:
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Re: to which type of reasons do you refer to as a language learner when you make a language selection for learning?

Postby Doitsujin » Sat Mar 18, 2023 5:13 pm

rdearman wrote:Actually, forget I said learn Python. It is rubbish. I have just spent 8 hours trying to fix all the f(*&^ing whitespace in a file.
I'm just a hobby programmer, but I find your experience hard to believe. Usually, Python programmers either use 4 spaces or a tab. If you have to merge code from different sources, usually, all you have to do is find out what characters they used for indentations and then replace all tabs with 4 spaces or vice versa.
Moreover, most editors for programmers have options for showing tabs and other whitespace characters, which makes it relatively easy to find and fix problematic code sections using regular expressions. And all other issues can be easily found with a Python linter, e.g. Flake8 or Pylint.
IMHO, apart from Visual Basic, pretty much the only other beginner-friendly programming language that has as many libraries as Python is Go, which makes is possible to write simple cross-platform command line utilities with only a couple of lines.
rdearman wrote:Oh, and your 100 line Fortran program, or the 4 line Python tprogram could probably have been done in 1 line of Perl. :ugeek:
Maybe, but not everyone likes Code golf. :)

As for the original question, I find it somewhat pointless. Usually, language learners either learn a language because they need to learn it or because they like it or at least find it interesting.

(That's why I pretty much ignored this thread, I only replied to it today, because I stumbled upon rdearman's reply by chance.)
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Re: to which type of reasons do you refer to as a language learner when you make a language selection for learning?

Postby jimmy » Sat Mar 18, 2023 8:24 pm

Doitsujin wrote:
As for the original question, I find it somewhat pointless. Usually, language learners either learn a language because they need to learn it or because they like it or at least find it interesting.

(That's why I pretty much ignored this thread, I only replied to it today, because I stumbled upon rdearman's reply by chance.)

mm, I think that the issue is NOT so much simple or narrow.
I am not linguist , but I know that there are some relations between languages.
( so, the one may be easier to learn than the other. )
when I opened this thread, I was just thinking this point by my side.
but I do not know what others' ideas were.

let consider rdearman's one saying as a model (to respond my own question):

by that,I undestand that just difficulty (even if it is personalized to you) or easeness should NOT be a reason.
because he says : Rust is difficult language, but that does not mean it was worthless , in contrast, it is worthwhile. (Also, difficulty & easeness is personalized idea, therefore, to one; one issue may be very difficult while the other one may find it way easy.This is normal)


ah, interestingly sometimes,I think the reasons for the existence of so many languages. By our view, in fact , there was just one language at first , later , it presumably exposed to something and modified ,mutated and as result: changed. Therefore, today we have so many languages.
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Re: to which type of reasons do you refer to as a language learner when you make a language selection for learning?

Postby noblethings » Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:03 am

jimmy wrote:by that,I undestand that just difficulty (even if it is personalized to you) or easeness should NOT be a reason.

I mean, whatever a person's reason for learning a language is, why should it bother you that much? Almost like you need to police other peoples' reasons for learning languages! :lol: :lol:

jimmy wrote:While I find this logical , it might be insufficient reason to require strong relation between the new language and his/her native language.

People don't need a reason that you consider to be "sufficient". If they want to learn a language, or dabble in it for a month ,or whatever, it's fine. It's not that deep. A lot of people just enjoy it.
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Re: to which type of reasons do you refer to as a language learner when you make a language selection for learning?

Postby Lisa » Sun Mar 19, 2023 4:58 am

Doitsujin wrote:As for the original question, I find it somewhat pointless. Usually, language learners either learn a language because they need to learn it or because they like it or at least find it interesting.


Of course want or need covers the reasons in general, but faced with a decision (not you, perhaps, but for example myself), I ask myself should I study this language or that language. And may not be obvious which one to choose, if the needs are equal and the interest is equal. Once you have picked it's easy to say you needed it or just wanted to study it.
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Re: to which type of reasons do you refer to as a language learner when you make a language selection for learning?

Postby Doitsujin » Sun Mar 19, 2023 8:40 am

Lisa wrote:Of course want or need covers the reasons in general, but faced with a decision (not you, perhaps, but for example myself), I ask myself should I study this language or that language. And may not be obvious which one to choose, if the needs are equal and the interest is equal. Once you have picked it's easy to say you needed it or just wanted to study it.
This is, of course, a valid argument, however, the reasons why other language learners decide for or against learning a particular language are irrelevant to me, because they're most likely not identical with my own reasons.
I'm much more interested in learning about the methods and resources that other language learners use, because they're usually more helpful than the usual language learning truisms found on pop-sci websites.
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Re: to which type of reasons do you refer to as a language learner when you make a language selection for learning?

Postby Irena » Sun Mar 19, 2023 10:24 am

As I see it, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. 8-) That is to say, if you manage to learn a language to a decent level, then that proves that you had a good reason for learning that language. Whether that reason would be compelling enough for me to learn that (or any other) language is beside the point. Another way of saying the same thing is that a good reason for learning a language is any reason that will make you stick to it for the long term. You don't need to justify your choice to anyone but yourself (and even your justification to yourself need not be explicit). But it can still be interesting to read what people's reasons are. :)

Oh, and of course it's also okay to just dabble in a language, if that's what you like to do.
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