Comment by 082349872349872
2 years ago
Edsger Dijkstra had a precise english style; even though his mother tongue was Dutch, I find he made better use of English than many native speakers.
In one of the EWD's, he reminisced that, as children, they were taught to never begin to speak a sentence unless they already knew how they were going to finish it.
I'd bet these two observations have a causal connection.
When I was a young man I was taking a language course while I was temporarily living in a foreign country. There was an older man in the course (not elderly, more like mid-fifties) who was very bad at the new language we were both learning. Yet I noticed he had, what seemed to me, a magic power: he could always make people laugh. He would often whisper something to one of our classmates and they would always get a giant smile on their face or even laugh out loud.
I was intensely curious and I spent some time wondering how he did it. One day, out of the blue, he invited me out to lunch after class. We just chatted for most of the lunch, exchanging backgrounds and stories. Then his face took on a serious expression and he slowly and carefully began to explain something to me as if he was passing on some wisdom.
He said that he never spoke a single sentence without fully saying the sentence in his mind. He said he would often think of the words several times in his mind, revising the phrase until he was happy. He would imagine saying the words to the person in front of him and he would imagine their reaction. And he would continue to revise until he felt confident the person who heard the words he would say would react in the way he wanted them to react. If he could not imagine the person reacting how he wanted them to react, he would not say anything at all.
It was clear to me that he was passing along this advice but also that he was calling me out a bit. He was letting me know that I spoke without thinking. I say what pops into my head. It was like he read my mind honestly, he knew exactly what I was curious about and he answered the question I had for him that I never asked.
I wish I could say that I learned the lesson. When I have tried the technique it has rewarded the effort. But I haven't formed it into a habit and I still tend to let my mouth race ahead of my mind.
That actually sounds like hell to me, a complete absence of spontaneity and being in the moment.
I used to obsessively try to figure out what to say before I said it. I am socially awkward, and it did not help at all. I love writing because it is asynchronous and I can figure things out precisely and edit my thoughts.
But in social situations it is a complete hindrance.
I've observed two things. One, writing is different to speaking, because it's async, you can think before you write, you can edit, etc.
But second, speaking in a non-native language makes you think harder about what you're about to say. Less colloquialisms, more focus on making sure your meaning is understood, more sensitivity in case you might offend someone, perhaps?
It's not new either; a lot of science and whatnot has been done in people's not-native language, like French, German, Latin, etc. Another factor there is the lingo of the field; I can't simply say "Kubernetes is een open-bron houder orkestratiesysteem voor het automatiseren van de inzet, schalen, en het beheer van zachte waren" without confusing half my native speaking audience.
I love reading his EWDs, I had a professor who worked with him who mentioned he made his students work use pens while taking his tests. To make it less likely for the students to make mistakes??
> he made his students work use pens while taking his tests
This is very common in the Netherlands, I think that's why it was a rule of his.
In general, the Dutch education system seems to be against pencils (at least this was the case until recent; I'm Dutch and mid 20s). You're tought to write using a fountain pen, not a pencil. In high school, you're allowed to switch to ball point but absolutely not to pencil. In university, write with pretty much anything you want, but... not with a pencil. If you do take your test with a pencil, there's genuinely a chance your teacher will give you a 0, although most of the time they'll probably be forgiving.
I majored in CS in the Netherlands and every test was done with good old pen and paper. Students still make mistakes all the time, which is why everyone uses a scrap sheet.
Same for me, growing up in the middle east. We used fountain pens for everything. And using pens/pencils wasn’t allowed for tests/submissions etc..
Perhaps to make it easier determine how to correct instruction.
- "Guidelines for keeping a laboratory notebook" (2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19123430#19126809
I also learned English from textbooks, and one of the strangest things I encountered that native speakers routinely confuse "their, there, they're" which I never thought was a mistake I could make. It would be like confusing 'wet' and 'vet'. So there's definitely a difference between native and non-native speakers use the language.
The people who confuse that mostly have not done very much reading. Audibly, those words are identical.
Even crazier:
“Could of”.
Like “You could of said so”.
Is that even possible, or just hyperbole? I'd bet the latter. I wouldn't be surprised if some people are able to fully unravel entire paragraphs of conversation in their head in a couple of seconds, but that's not something you could teach to children in general.
I don't think it is feasible, at least for conversation, but as an aspirational goal for children, along the lines of "put your toys away when you've finished playing with them", it is not a bad one.
It's not unusual for me to think I know how I am going to end a sentence, but then find that I can't get there.
in Dutch (and German) the verb often goes at the end of a sentence, so the advice is rather practical.
Dat week ik heel goed :(
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German children would with you disagree.
I also wonder if it has anything to do with the process of learning a new language in general. I've thought more thoroughly about how English works since I've been learning French (not that I'm very eloquent in either)
Unfortunately from experience that just gives enough of a delay that you get talked over in a group setting and never get a chance to speak anyway.