On 9 March 2014 08:45, <l.wood@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A four-year-old is taking the effort to learn a language, which is
why the comparison is valid.
Valid from a communications standpoint, perhaps, but not from the standpoint of having the required knowledge.
Taking part in "foreign" technical discussions really is hard - I've engaged once or twice in French discussions, and I apologise for those I inflicted my French upon. It's not that I have no clue what *they're* saying - I can in general follow written technical French reasonably well - and it's not that I'm clueless in the subject either, but I struggle to make myself understood properly. In most cases I give up and shamefully switch to English, which is only an option because I happen to know the audience will understand my English better than my French. (The Russians have a phrase - I'm like a dog, I cannot speak, but I understand.)
On the flip side, the studies into bilingualism - a subject close to me since both my children are bilingual[*] - demonstrate that problem solving skills are enhanced by a different language, since the grammar changes make considering different solutions more natural. My gut feel would be that this would apply to this situation too, and moreover, would apply more to communications protocol design than many other problem domains. So writing off bad English too quickly is problematic for "us", too.
Dave.
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* - English/Welsh, in case you wonder. We live in an area where Welsh is a common first language, so hearing it on the street is normal.