• Kevin (unregistered)

    I reelly lufe-a zeedeeelyvtff.cum it mekes me-a loogh es mooch es zee Svedeesh Cheff oon zee Mooppet shoo. Keep up zee greet vurk mekeeng ixcellent erteecles! Bork Bork Bork!

  • (cs) in reply to bfandreas
    bfandreas:
    Carting the guy off to an elbonian team was a stupid move. Why does that team exist in the first place?

    No one said the guys on that team (apart from the new guy) spoke only Elbonian.

  • Simon (unregistered) in reply to Almafuerte
    Almafuerte:
    To be honest, I don't like the English dominance of the world, If we were to choose a universal language, I would go with Esperanto, or some other neutral-ground, designed language.

    Yeah, but this is the real world, and going with a neutral, designed language means that nobody already speaks it. And as such, it's less useful than every single other language that's already in use.

    English has its faults, but it's by far the most widely understood language on the planet. Mandarin is a much-used runner up, but even so - when a Chinese traveler speaks to (e.g) a Korean, it'll almost certainly be in English, even if that latter speaks passable Mandarin. At least, that's what I've observed on my travels...

  • Vlad Patryshev (unregistered)

    Well, my classmate came to this country a while ago, from the USSR. The company where he worked had to hire him a translator.

    He is now a CEO of a very successful and famous company, which I rather not name.

    So there, guys. One can learn the language; one cannot grow IQ. :p

  • Simon (unregistered) in reply to Mason Wheeler
    Mason Wheeler:
    In fact, the only foreign country I've been to where my native English was good enough to get by with was Australia.

    You might be surprised then. Certainly, if you're living in another country, it's good to learn some of the local language, part of integrating into another society.

    But I've spent a lot of time traveling Europe in the past year, and I quickly found there just wasn't much practical value in learning German, or Czech, or Polish, or whatever else. Sure, the locals often appreciate that you've taken the effort - but since most of them speak English better than I do, there was little chance to actually use my the stuff in my phrasebook...

    That said, it does vary. Can't speak for Argentina, but my experience of other parts of South America was that few spoke English with any fluency - some of the tourist guides, some university students, that was about it...

  • defaultex (unregistered) in reply to Rookierookie
    Rookierookie:
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    How is this a WTF? If you go to another country, you should be expected to know enough of the local language to communicate. The WTF is that Sean didn't mention when he recommended the guy that he said "But he can't speak English very well; I did the interview in Elbonian since he was more comfortable speaking that." that way at least management knew and could choose not to hire him.

    Seriously though, if you come to America speak English of some form so people can understand you. Yes, have pride in your original culture but speak it at home and with close friends, don't force everyone else to speak YOUR language in OUR country.

    Actually that is completely untrue, the majority of American and British folks in most countries where the native language is not English never learn the slightest bit of the native language. Which is fine for them because in most of these countries English is spoken, with varying degrees of competence, and they tend to move in circles where people speak English quite well, but the fact remains that most people moving to English speaking countries are expected to be fluent in English, while the reverse is almost never true for English speakers.

    That's one thing I really dislike about native English speakers. I spent a lot of time talking with a guy that's well known in the industry I work in, we bounce ideas off each other a lot, and when we're not busy play games online together. He offered to throw some weight around and get me a job on his team being one of very few people that could keep up with him that actually works in the field (most of the people doing this kinda stuff work with computational farms instead of consumer hardware).

    I had to decline, for now at least. The company he works for is mostly Japanese people that can barely hold a normal conversation in English, let alone a technical one. So I've been spending a lot of time studying Japanese both written and spoken. I can't in good conscious accept his offer and expect one of the handful of people that know English well enough to translate for me when needed.

  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to ubersoldat
    ubersoldat:
    It's really annoying to be kept going in/out of English. I really hate localization of English words like hardware, software, cpu, etc.

    I tend to comment my code in latin. You got a problem with that?

    ubersoldat:
    I'm native Spanish speaker and I completely disregard any software/IT related professional who doesn't speaks/understands a minimum of English.

    Caput tuum in ano est.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to ubersoldat
    ubersoldat:
    And finally, any programming book worth reading probably won't be translated to Spanish.
    And any programming book worth reading in Japanese, Chinese, German, etc., probably won't be translated to either Spanish OR English.
    ubersoldat:
    Hell, StackOverflow is all in English!
    And Chinese sites where programmers consult with each other are all in Chinese! And Japanese sites where programmers consult with each other are all in Japanese! And French sites where programmers consult with each other are all in French!

    A few years ago I had to search for something about using VC++ 6 to add an ActiveX control that was built into VB 6. VC++ 6 had tools for it but I had to search for something, I forgot what. Google found more hits in Japanese than in English.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Almafuerte
    Almafuerte:
    The worst offenders are the Spaniards. They'll translate everything ... even when it doesn't make sense. I've heard them say shit like "Cortafuegos" (Firewall), "La Placa Madre" (motherboard).
    Firewalls protected living spaces or the human-occupied areas of factories for centuries before computers were invented. Are you sure Spain used the English word ... wait, are you sure English even existed yet?
    Almafuerte:
    If we were to choose a universal language, I would go with Esperanto, or some other neutral-ground, designed language.
    To be really neutral, you'll also need to use Chinese characters instead of Italian characters.
  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Valued Service
    Valued Service:
    At my dad's job there's a ridiculously small woman who can't perform the duties because she can't reach anything (disregarding the fact that she can't figure out how to perform the duties, so it's like a double lie), but they can't fire her because she's the only woman on the team. So should they be forced to install step ladders everywhere at the cost of tens of thousands? Oh I know, they should have to build a ramp up the smokestack.
    A ridiculously small woman does the duties that my wife pays her for. My wife paid for step ladders and they didn't cost tens of thousands. Of course if the employee didn't do the work then she'd be fired[*].

    [* My wife is not a WTF manager. But the work doesn't involve programming or nuclear power plants.]

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Seems a lot of doctors were mis-diagnosing patients and/or prescribing incorrect medicines, because the health service was merrily hiring overseas doctors without even bothering to check they could speak or understand English. Meaning *they couldn't communicate with their patients*, a rather vital requirement.

    Only recently has a rule been put in place that says doctors must be reasonably fluent in English.

    Some doctors can't communicate with their patients because the patients can't speak Japanese. But if there were a rule, the rule would say that doctors must be reasonably fluent in Japanese. Oddly, in some clinics, it isn't entirely necessary for doctors to be fluent in Japanese.

  • (cs) in reply to QJo
    QJo:
    The real WTF is people incapable of learning a foreign language.
    Another is that one of the first phrases one learns it that he doesn't understand the language: "M pas kompran kreyol."

    I'd rather learn something useful,like: "Ou sont le Toilette?" or "Aerogliseur Mwen se tout Eel"

  • (cs)

    How does one respond to: "Haters gonna hate"? I can't think of an ending to "Douchebags gonna ________."

  • IN-HOUSE-CHAMP (unregistered)

    Elbonia is probably code for India.

  • MBV (unregistered) in reply to foxyshadis
    foxyshadis:
    MBV:
    About foreign languages: in The Netherlands foreigners hardly get a chance to learn Dutch. Everybody will switch to English on the first hesitation of the foreigner, even if that foreigner only speaks e.g. French and a bit of Dutch. On the other hand, English speaking foreigners always assume that everybody can switch to English on the first word, without bothering to ask if you speak that language. That can be quite annoying, especially in a noisy place.
    As soon as you leave the cities, or visit the smaller cities outside the big centers, that's not as true, though. You really need an interpreter or really good miming skills.

    Also, even in Amsterdam, it seems that if you look Nordic, people will start off with Dutch. My Hispanic lady never once heard Dutch directed at her the entire trip, however.

    /tristique, the art of crying over non-English comments in source code.

    I'm curious where you went, Limburg, Groningen, Friesland? As far as I know, everyone younger than 50 knows enough English to give directions or help you in a store. Don't expect anyone to give an accurate translation of the menu though ;)

  • CA (unregistered)

    I don't believe you need to know the language of the country you go to to work there as an IT professional. What I DO expect is to speak English. My native language is Greek but I cannot imagine myself working in IT and not knowing English.

    For God's sake, we have to deal with programming languages written in ENGLISH. You have integers, floats, doubles, arrays, libraries with functions in English, documentation in English, support pages on the Internet are mostly in English.

    If one is a Latins scholar, I expect them to speak Latin or at least be able to understand it and be able to create small sentences. Perhaps the analogy is far fetched but nevertheless, why should IT be different? And we are not talking about dead languages like Latin. C++ is still alive and well.

    And I agree with a previous comment. I despise looking at code and see variable names and comments in the programmer's native language. Is it that difficult to write

    //Verification of fees float fees;

    instead of

    //Επαλήθευση τελών float teli;

  • Your Name (unregistered) in reply to imgx64
    imgx64:
    Relevant: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/03/the-ugly-american-programmer.html

    CAPTCHA: decet. Obviously Akismet cannot communicate well in English.

    Great beer from the top brewery in Pittsburgh.

  • (cs) in reply to IN-HOUSE-CHAMP
    IN-HOUSE-CHAMP:
    Elbonia is probably code for India.

    I've started to pick up on translations of English. A lot of Indian programmers that I've worked with will ask questions in this format:

    "How to do this?"

    Instead of:

    "How do you do this?"

  • gnasher729 (unregistered) in reply to Valued Service
    Valued Service:
    At my dad's job there's a ridiculously small woman who can't perform the duties because she can't reach anything (disregarding the fact that she can't figure out how to perform the duties, so it's like a double lie), but they can't fire her because she's the only woman on the team. So should they be forced to install step ladders everywhere at the cost of tens of thousands? Oh I know, they should have to build a ramp up the smokestack.
    Strange. I did have a female collegue once whose height was 3ft 6". Smarter than most. Could handle a keyboard very well (and she'd probably have managed to smack it straight at your head if you upset her enough). They found an office chair that could lift up quite high, and two step stools on wheels, that was the whole amount of adaptation that was needed. So for an investment of less than £100 we got an excellent software developer.

    I'd be curious if that ridiculously small woman is complaining about a man with a ridiculously small brain she is working with. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to CA
    CA:
    And I agree with a previous comment. I despise looking at code and see variable names and comments in the programmer's native language. Is it that difficult to write

    //Verification of fees float fees;

    instead of

    //Επαλήθευση τελών float teli;

    Sometimes I write comments to remind myself of why I did something, but sometimes I write comments to inform others of why I did something. Sometimes the others might be programmers who worked on the code before I did and they might work on it again afterwards. In such cases it's pretty important to conform to their style, including writing comments that they should be able to understand, and therefore NOT WRITE COMMENTS IN MY NATIVE LANGUAGE.

    Sure, maybe they could write nonsense Engrish if they had to, and maybe they could misinterpret correct English, but if I'm capable of communicating with them properly then I should make the effort.

    I've been told there aren't many programming books in Greek. Archimedes must be mad as hell. There are lots of programming books in Japanese. Some of them would be worth translating into English but haven't been done.

  • Essex Kitten (unregistered) in reply to OldCoder
    OldCoder:
    You can't expect to roll up in [Insert random country here] and get any job without being able to speak the local lingo.

    You'll be surprised how many hamsters not only don't know this, they don't want to understand the concept of speaking the language of the foreign country that isn't Elbonia when trying to get work there. Sometimes it doesn't hit them even when they arrive there and they can't communicate with anyone. I don't get these people. What I get is that there are lots and lots of them.

  • Neil (unregistered) in reply to Dave
    Dave:
    I tend to comment my code in Latin.
    You must love the captchas here.
  • Elbo (unregistered)

    Where tf is Elbonia ??? I've never heard in my life such a preposterous name ... On the other hand I've heard about Albania .

  • Narfff (unregistered) in reply to OldCoder

    Dutch expat in Portugal here. After about half a year of doing everything in English (Because I didn't speak any Portuguese when moving here on a whim) I basically told my colleagues to adress me in Portuguese from then on (Even sent it to the company wide e-mail list). My Portuguese improved rapidly from there on.

  • the beholder (unregistered) in reply to Narfff
    Narfff:
    Dutch expat in Portugal here. After about half a year of doing everything in English (Because I didn't speak any Portuguese when moving here on a whim) I basically told my colleagues to adress me in Portuguese from then on (Even sent it to the company wide e-mail list). My Portuguese improved rapidly from there on.
    Good for you. Just do not assume you're ready to face brazilian portuguese or you're in for a big surprise.
  • CA (unregistered) in reply to Elbo

    Whoever is wondering where Elbonia is, it is an imaginary third world country filled with mud, part of the Dilbert comics series by Scott Adams. You will find a lot of references to that comic in TDWTF since it makes jokes about the corporate world.

  • Paul (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    That's a WTF all of its own. Wasn't the Daily Mail was it?

  • Oscar Carserud (unregistered)

    Elbonian mud farmer. me myself began as a "mud boy", and liked the hard work and the sights of awe from the girls. I decided to go a pre school for mud farming, a two year school, that worked out very wel, so I was granted to go to hig mud school at our head capitol, for 5 more years. As an educated mud specialist at mud with different portions of silica and iron deposit I facet - unenployment! I turns out that under the time I vas at education, the mud industry went bancrupt due to heavy competition from China. Now i am unemployde and runs a smal domain (vskg.se) that utilises html5, javascript, ajax and php. Surely full of wtfs.

  • (cs) in reply to pjt33
    pjt33:
    Almafuerte:
    The worst offenders are the Spaniards. They'll translate everything ... even when it doesn't make sense. I've heard them say shit like "Cortafuegos" (Firewall), "La Placa Madre" (motherboard).
    Your claims intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to the newsletter in which you explain why cortafuegos makes less sense than firewall and why placa madre makes less sense than motherboard.

    Because it's 'La placa base'? Or at least I thought so...

    I know and work with a fair few Spaniards and generally any given technical term ends up being 'El <term in English>' if they're speaking in Spanish. The basic stuff that is a metaphor from real-life (desktops and stuff like that) are just the word for that physical thing.

    I really ought to get my Spanish (well castellano anyway - don't want to upset the Catalan folks) up to scratch, but the moment there's a brit within earshot they jump straight into English.

    Most amusing thing I've seen:

    1. // Que coño es eso???? - Compiler doesn't like the extended characters. Let's rephrase it slightly:

    2. // Que conio es eso???? - Compiler likes it now but we don't like phrases like that, so let's strip 'conio' out with all the dirty words, shall we?

    3. Who broke the bloody code?

  • (cs) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    IN-HOUSE-CHAMP:
    Elbonia is probably code for India.

    I've started to pick up on translations of English. A lot of Indian programmers that I've worked with will ask questions in this format:

    "How to do this?"

    Instead of:

    "How do you do this?"

    Our version of English, far superior than any other version out there.

  • V (unregistered)

    Most competent programmers I've met know at least some English regardless of where they live and what their native language is. Even if not fluent, they do know enough to use English variable names. Given that there were a number of "Elbonian" programmers in that company already, they could've easily accommodated the guy, maybe have him enroll in some English classes at the local community college. He would have been productive right away and within a few months he would've had a passable English. I can tell you that a lot of people understand English much better than they can speak it, because they feel nervous/uncomfortable/shy speaking.

    I can bet you that 5:1 that was the case with that guy.

  • TheShmow (unregistered)

    I'm not buying it. Most Elbonians are fluent in English.

    It was because he was a lefty, wasn't it?

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to V
    V:
    Most competent programmers I've met know at least some English regardless of where they live and what their native language is. Even if not fluent, they do know enough to use English variable names.
    Not really. English keywords yes, and English APIs (like creat(), or a Windows struct member that has "milleseconds" as part of its name, or a Windows installer variable that has "ouput" as part of its name). But variables, not necessarily. I once wasted some time before noticing that some identifier (from a cow-orker not from an API) had "infomation" as part of its name. Some variable names aren't Engrish so I know to read and copy carefully, or use the mouse to copy and paste.
    V:
    they could've easily accommodated the guy, maybe have him enroll in some English classes at the local community college.
    Yes that is true. I bet they'd have got their money's worth too.
  • woliveirajr (unregistered) in reply to ubersoldat

    There's a lot of proposals in stackoverflow that are ready to go to beta stage, just waiting until the interface has enought/good/decent translation...

    captcha: iusto = almost fair :)

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