It’s funny that I took the parent comment as referring to programming languages, but it totally works for people learning spoken/written languages as well. It really is a universal thing.
i think it only makes sense for referring to programming languages. someone who wants to get a job in the usa, understand their favorite anime, study the buddhist scriptures, or write a new translation of the odyssey isn't going to 'spend so much time deciding what is the "right" language'; the right language is almost uniquely determined by the application area, being respectively english, japanese, pali, and homeric greek in those cases. it's only programming languages where we dither about whether to learn c, scheme, javascript, or rust, because we can do the same things in all of them
Funny enough, I was referring to natural languages. You're right that in some cases it's very clear that you should learn English, Japanese, etc. but for many others they're actually attracted to a few languages. (e.g.,I like both Italian and Spanish, which one to learn first? Should I learn ancient Greek or Biblical Hebrew first? Would learning modern Hebrew first help me with Biblical Hebrew?) They don't realize that whatever they choose is going to be hard, so it's better just to choose one instead of dabbling.
kragen|2 years ago
dustincoates|2 years ago