whats te best way to make a language easier to learn for indigenouspeople

[Greg]

Lately I have been Customizing C commands into another language
(Shona) to facilitate easier learning of C by Shona speaking people
using pre-processor directives i.e. (#include define)

is there a better way to have C or C++ available in another language.

 

[Sam]

Lately I have been Customizing C commands into another language
(Shona) to facilitate easier learning of C by Shona speaking people
using pre-processor directives i.e. (#include define)

is there a better way to have C or C++ available in another language.

No. Face it, C, and pretty much all other programming languages, are written
in English. Trying to hodge-podge a translation of the programming
language's grammar to another (non-English) native language may seem like a
worthwhile idea at first, but will prove to be counter-productive in the
long run.

What you will essentially accomplish is making them learn a programming
language that only they will know. Even if they master their own nativ-ized
version of C, as soon as they see a real C program, that's it. They won't
make heads and tails of it. So, what have you really accomplish?

You'll just have to bite the bullet, and give them a crash course in basic
English, concurrently with studying the C programming language. English has
become, through a series of historical events, lingua franca of all
programming languages. Learning basic English is crucial to being able to
communicate with other programmers.

Occasionally I come across people trying to communicate on various technical
topics, in my native language. It's … not a pretty sight. Trying to converse
on programming topics in anything other than English is very painful.


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[Kai-Uwe Bux]

Lately I have been Customizing C commands into another language
(Shona) to facilitate easier learning of C by Shona speaking people
using pre-processor directives i.e. (#include define)

I did that once. The only consequence was that the code got totally
obfuscated and unmaintainable. I gave up on it very soon.

is there a better way to have C or C++ available in another language.

I guess, what would really help is a good text book on standard C++ in that
language.


Best

Kai-Uwe Bux

 

[Jim Langston]

Lately I have been Customizing C commands into another language
(Shona) to facilitate easier learning of C by Shona speaking people
using pre-processor directives i.e. (#include define)

is there a better way to have C or C++ available in another language.

I remember years ago when I was quite younger, in my teens I think, I
happened across a French magazine. Written entirely in French. I flipped
thorugh it just becuase and I came across a little comic. Liking comics I
tried to figure out what was going on.

In the first panel a woman was talking to a boy obvoiusly her son. In the
second panel he replies with something. In the third panel she's reading to
him in bed, so obvoiusly she asked him what story he wanted to read that
night. The thing that got me was the third panel the "story" she was
reading him was a basic program. In English. Something like (my basic is
very rusty, especially 80's era)

10 I = 10
20 INPUT A$
30 FOR J = 1 TO I
40 PRINT J
50 NEXT J

Or whatever. What got me was that this was a magazine entirely for French
people, yet here were English words. Input, For, Print, next. Didn't they
have their own version of Basic? Then I realized that if they used
different words they wouldn't be able to read American programs and
vice-versa.

Many years later the ramifications of this showed up, I was working as a
progrmamer/analyst and the owner's neiphew from Brazil came to work there in
the IT department. Not a problem, he was actually pretty smart, knew
computers and spoke pretty good English considering he learned it in Brazil.
But one day he mentioned something about an "Esk" key. I couldn't figure
out what he was talking about, what was an esk key. You know, the key in
the top left corner. Oh, the Escape key. He never heard it called the
Escape key, they had no diea why it was "ESC" so they just pronouced it.

But, they were able to use their computers just fine.

I wonder how the conversation would of gone, however, if he wsa talking
about an "Escapar" key or "Espaço" key.

 

[HT de Beer]

No. Face it, C, and pretty much all other programming languages, are
written in English. Trying to hodge-podge a translation of the programming
language's grammar to another (non-English) native language may seem like
a worthwhile idea at first, but will prove to be counter-productive in the
long run.

What you will essentially accomplish is making them learn a programming
language that only they will know. Even if they master their own
nativ-ized version of C, as soon as they see a real C program, that's it.
They won't make heads and tails of it. So, what have you really
accomplish?

You'll just have to bite the bullet, and give them a crash course in basic
English, concurrently with studying the C programming language. English
has become, through a series of historical events, lingua franca of all
programming languages. Learning basic English is crucial to being able to
communicate with other programmers.

The language problem is twofold (or threefold, see your next point). First
of all the programming language itself. They seem to be in some kind of
english with words like `for', `then', `if', etc. On the other hand, these
words are just symbols, they could have been `:', `-', `?' for example or
any other words.

So you could translate them easily into Shona, no problem there. However, as
other people have pointed out, they will not able to read programs written
in the original programming language or programs written by people using
other symbols.

But given the fact that these english words are no more than symbols, not
knowing english is not a problem: you can teach your pupils in Shona
programming while using the symbols which are named `for', `then', and `if'
with a predefines meaning you can explain in Shona.

The second language problem is in designing and documenting a program,
especially writing comments and names in the source code. You can design
and document a program in every language you can express using ascii
symbols (I do not think C is able to process UTF?), may be even Shona,
French, German, Finnish, whatever.

Of course, you have now almost the same problem as before with using
translated symbols: other programmers (not speaking Shona) are not able to
understand your documented code. This will not be a problem as long as your
pupils will not have to communicate (about their programs) with non-Shona
people.

I know that when I was learning programming, the courses, the names, and the
comments were in my native tongue. Did I learn programming? Yes. Do I
program in my native tongue nowadays? No. English is indeed the lingua
franca of programming and once you start participating in the real world
knowledge of english is just a necessity.

Occasionally I come across people trying to communicate on various
technical topics, in my native language. It's … not a pretty sight. Trying
to converse on programming topics in anything other than English is very
painful.

I agree. On the other hand, if the language does have the right words to
express these technical topics and these words are used as well, you get
used to it. The french, for example, are well known for defining ``native''
words for all kinds of alien words. Does it work? In France, may be, but
when you have to communicate with french people, it is often very
difficult.

 

[Greg]

point taken thanx plenta for that. what of the case of the chines/
Japanese and the like. after reading all r comments i think a book in
my native language with the english symbols intact is a good option. i
am a proponent of ICT4D.

CHEERS

GREG
WWW.ICTDI.ORG