programming or spoken language? same time to learn?

[michaelp]

Just started thinking about this randomly.
Is there really that much of a difference between the amount of time it takes to learn a spoken/written language, like english, or a programing language, like C++?
Note: 1 reason why I say C++ is because some higher level languages, such as Ruby, Python, etc, already have english like keywords in them, so the syntax becomes less of an issue to learn, and you can focus more on the programming.
Also, this would mean you haven't programmed before.

Let's say you said you first word at 1 year of age. At one year of age of learning a langauge, would that be considered the equivalent of writing your first somewhat complete program?

There are lots of things to take into consideration, like age, how "smart" the person is, etc.

But will you ever know everything about C++? Probably not.
What about the English language? Probably not.

I would say that it is similar in learning curve, for the most part.

[PaulButler]

Interesting thoughts. I think learning a language and learning to program are fundamentally different, though. Learning to program (for the first time) is about conceptual leaps. Learning a human language is generally more about memorizing the specific rules and vocabulary.

I think you are right in that the learning curve is roughly the same on average. Both involve a fairly large upfront investment of time before you can do anything useful with it. Although, once you've learned a few programming languages it becomes trivial to learn more, which is unfortunately not true of human languages.

[Insectoid]

Deep thinker of random thoughts. You fit in well here, Mike.

[wtd]

Mastery of both requires the same thing: practice.

[rizzix]

Study linguistics, it's a lot more interesting and you'll realize there exists a logic and structure to the natural language -- one that transcends formal grammar.

[wtd]

Incidentally, I had a chance to speak Spanish with native speakers twice today while at work. It was immensely gratifying. Usually non-english speakers are only comfortable in Cantonese, and there all I can do is point at products and say "hao", "bu hao" or "hen hao."

[Zeroth]

Like someone said, the english language has a structure and logic beyond just the grammar.

The Way English Is Taught, which is the right way, is that it consists of building up concepts, and abstracting thing out. We start with spelling, then move on to sentences, then fixing those sentences, then to paragraphs, multiple paragraphs, pages, multiple pages... and so on.

Theres also the fact that we learn how to talk... by listening to people around us talk. No one sits us down, and goes on making direct connections between words and the objects.

Think about it, we sit there, and absorb language... and we still don't know how its done! The process appears to be first, concrete nouns, specifically those for objects we're programmed to recognize(our parents). And that vocabulary expands at a frightening rate when you think about it. We go from knowing several hundred words and speaking ten, to within a year on average, knowing several thousand words including verbs, speaking several hundred. The progress is pretty exponential for a couple of years, then it levels off. And here's the weird thing: we still don't have machine learning models that can learn things at such an accelerated rate as the human brain does.

Part of learning language is learning past, present, and future tenses, conditionals, actions, basic logic. Learning language provides the base to understand computer languages. Computer languages borrow a lot of concepts from basic logic and common sense to be easy to learn(depending on the language, like Python). I, personally, think the amount of time is very different to become fluent in your first language and becoming fluent in C++.

If you want to understand just how amazing the fact that we can learn English with no issues by the time we're five... try writing a command line tool that will accept full english sentences. However, its not very difficult to have a program operate from a C++ sentence(function). The information density in any human language is phenomenally larger... larger on the order of an exponential scale.

[Reality Check]

^^That's not fair though. We've had thousands of years to perfect language. It's been taught all through history and the teaching of it has been vastly improved as well. People speak the language all around you every single day and so our brain picks up trends and we subconsciously teach ourselves the proper way to state a given sentence. We then go to the classroom where those trends we picked up are perfected. Programming is not something that is "spoken" all around you and so our brain doesn't have the luxury of picking up trends like we do with English. The only place where a Programming language can be taught is either in your own home or in a class and quite often the class teaches it wrong. A proper teaching method for Programming is not yet in place as it is with languages since programming is relatively new.

[Tony]

Reality Check @ Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:13 am wrote:

People speak the language all around you every single day and so our brain picks up trends and we subconsciously teach ourselves the proper way to state a given sentence.

Or like maybe like some1 will be all like "1 pwn ur n00bs" and u like will lern it wrong.

[Reality Check]

Yes, with more and more people saying things like LOL and ROFL in real life, the next generation of babies will all have LOL, ROFL, and other slang terms in the dictionary.

[Brightguy]

It would depend on the individual and their environment. In my experience it is far easier to learn a programming language.

[michaelp]

Reality Check @ Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:04 pm wrote:

Yes, with more and more people saying things like LOL and ROFL in real life, the next generation of babies will all have LOL, ROFL, and other slang terms in the dictionary.

If anyone I know ever said LOL or ROFL out loud, I might have to kill them.

[CyberGeek]

All I gotta say is that since Ive been programming, my english speaking and writing is going down the drain.

[Tony]

You could always start coding like this -- http://abstrusegoose.com/40

[btiffin]

CyberGeek @ Tue Aug 26, 2008 11:49 am wrote:

All I gotta say is that since Ive been programming, my english speaking and writing is going down the drain.

That would be a sign of a programmer that doesn't write enough client documentation.

Re the whole topic. I find the syntax for a programming language (first, or last) for someone with the knack could well fit in one of those "Teach yourself BobLoblaw in 21 days" or "24 hours" books; but mastery? Mastery comes in a book called "Teach yourself BobLobLaw in 21 days give or take a decade". Now, not having the knack for human languages, I've failed three times in my life to seriously learn french, so for me human languages take longer, infinitely longer. Either due to lack of motivation or skill, same result. Maird. Merde! I meant merde.

Cheers