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Comment by kylec | Hacker News Reader

I don't think anyone seriously thinks that learning a computer language is in any way equivalent to learning a foreign language. But it is useful to pretend that it does, so that we don't have to ask the real question:

Should everyone be required to study a foreign language in school?

My answer is no. I took a year of Latin in high school and hated it, and have never thought about it since. It was a huge waste of time. And if classifying computer languages as foreign languages can help some students opt-out, I'm all for it.

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As someone who grew up bilingual, I think knowing another language has been invaluable to how I approach and understand the world. I disagree (fully acknowledging my bias) that learning another language is a waste of time.

However, I think high school is too late. Most people I knew in HS that started learning another language weren't super invested and didn't learn it. Not to mention that it's really hard to do at 14-18. I think kindergarden-5th grade should have the option and encouragement to be bilingual though. At that point it's remarkably easier to pick up, and I think it would increase cross-cultural awareness and empathy, a trait that seems in decline recently.

You grew up bilingual, though. For those of us speaking the same languages as our parents/community, we're not going to come even remotely close to fluency with a couple of low-level school courses.

True, though I think a mixed school where a substantial portion of the day is just held in that language (i.e. math is taught in spanish or something) can bridge it somewhat. I think I'm a bit idealistic in this area though.

Also I'd say that young kids usually pick up languages like they're nothing, and they may well communicate amongst themselves in the new language. That said, my brother and I mostly speak english to one another... so maybe not.

Could you provide examples on how being bilingual has been invaluable to you?

I am only fluent in english, I live in a neighborhood where all restaurants answer the phone in spanish but there is usually a worker who speaks english to cover for me.

How do you feel being multilingual effects the way you think?

Practically speaking: French is similar enough to latin that most SAT vocab prep was far easier. It also helped when I learned spanish, because again the two are quite similar. Spanish has been useful at several points when I spent some time building things in Latin America, I actually wouldn't have had that opportunity if I didn't speak the language.

Fluffier: Watching french language movies and listening to French language music have given me an appreciation for the culture that I don't think I'd have if I didn't speak the language. I don't think I'd have as much understanding of the western European mindset if I didn't speak a western European language. There are also some things where there's a perfect word for that thing in French and those passing moments bring me joy.

Lots of these things will be also influenced by my having grown up in Belgian culture at home, but again culture and language are so closely entwined. I am a cultural mutt, which has occasionally made me feel not quite entirely of one place or the other, but on balance has been greatly enriching.

Your comment reminded me of the concept of being a “Third Culture Kid” and makes me realize how much I just I take for granted about my experience growing up in just one culture.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_culture_kid

Most children in non-english countries, especially in US influenced countries, have to learn English for up to 12 years in school.

I'm not sure, if there are any other benefits than being able to communicate in English. But in Germany we even force a 3rd language for at least 4 years to all students in the higher education school path. So there might be evidence for educational benefits?

The US might benefit from adding mandatory Spanish from a very young age with so many native speakers in the country and on the continent.

I once took a summer class in Latin and Greek, and it was one of the most useful classes I've ever taken. Half of English is based on Latin roots. It's like a programmer getting the source code to the standard library. Everything got easier.

In real life, knowing a little Latin has been way more useful than the years of German I took to fulfill graduation requirements.

Big German words are made of little German words. Big Japanese words are made of little Japanese words. Big English words are mostly made of Latin. I'm surprised Latin isn't part of the standard English curriculum.

> I'm surprised Latin isn't part of the standard English curriculum.

The declensions!!!

Well, there's the useful parts of Latin, for English speakers, and the not-so-useful parts. :-)

You can learn a bunch of basic Latin vocabulary, and make good use of it in English, without needing to practice all the declensions until your fingernails fall out.

I think it depends on the foreign language; some are more useful than others. I probably wouldn't use Latin all that much, whereas having a basic understanding of Spanish does come in handy (at least here in the US).

I'm by no means fluent in Spanish (even after taking two years of it in high school), but if at least some of it stuck then I'd say that's better than nothing. Not saying there ain't better ways of getting that education, but it's a start.

I've since found that I rather enjoy a lot of Spanish-language media (especially television and music); I'm - again - nowhere near sufficiently fluent to understand everything, but I know enough to be able to appreciate it instead of writing it off as gibberish.

Most classes are a waste of time in one way or another. Do we really need to know chemistry, physics, arbitrarily selected bits of history? No. We learn about language because it is important to human culture.

Latin isn't a living language, though.

It satisfied the foreign language requirement

Bertrand Russell argued against the use of learning Greek and Latin in the early 1930s -- for the reason that previously, the main source of education and culture and just plain 'new ideas' for people around the time of the Enlightenment was the written records of the Greeks and Romans.

Nowadays the bulk of new ideas are in living foreign languages like French, Italian, Russian, etc. I know that, for example, Spain is a large hub of the Free Software movement. Sweden has a big export on crime drama, France on romance movies. There are thousands of Russian academic papers with ideas that are still unknown in the west, because of the cold war.

You probably would have better enjoyed the language if it gave you access to things you found interesting, or if the culture contained something useful or interesting to you.

Or to see it differently, of course "It was a huge waste of time", you chose a language that has no cultural benefit to you, and was forced to learn it. And then you seem surprised that it didn't pay off!

As someone who took Latin, I don't disagree. Yes, English has roots in Latin. It also has roots in Anglo-Saxon and French. I'm not convinced that Latin has a unique pedagogical value for English speakers. It feels more like, outside of classical studies programs, a vestige of what a curriculum for properly-educated upper classes looked like a hundred years ago.

There's nothing wrong with many aspects of such a curriculum but it probably belongs as part of a classics major at a liberal arts college rather than a language option at a typical high school.

And Brainfuck and Whitespace are technically programming languages. That doesn't mean it's useful to learn them.

took 4 years of Latin in high school, and it was very useful: I guess its value varies depending on what else you do later, and if it's therefore helpful there?

What sort of uses have you had for it?

English is riddled with latin phrases, and many words have latin roots. That and many original sources are in latin.

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