Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!wasatch!uplherc!wicat!landru!gsarff
From: gsarff@landru.UUCP (Gary Sarff)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: foreign language requirements for PhDs
Message-ID: <00161@landru.UUCP>
Date: 20 Mar 89 03:00:29 GMT
Organization: Programmers in Exile
Lines: 41

In article <1989Mar17.190907.2845@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <1571@vicom.COM> bitbug@vicom.COM (James Buster) writes:
>>I presume, Henry, that you know how f^&*#%$ hard Japanese is to learn...
>
>I've barely glanced at Japanese, so I can't really say I know.  (Russian
>was enough of a hassle...)
>
>>... while Japanese may make sense, I think that its
>>difficulty precludes making it a *requirement*.
>
>I think this translates to "language requirements don't make sense in
>computers and electronics at English-language universities".  While I
>don't deny that interesting work takes place in other languages, I can't
>immediately think of any that is one-tenth as important as English and
>Japanese.  (This may all change in twenty years... but I doubt it.)
>-- 
I've had Russian too and all those different cases for words, some of
them nicely irregular, make things rather difficult, even for Russians.
I was shocked when I learned that all the number words have to be declined
in seven different cases, 3 genders (m,f,neuter) and singular, plural.
My Russian teacher, who was a REAL little old lady from Leningrad, said
even most Russians don't bother to do it above then number five or so
because it is too hard.  She said, be glad you aren't learning Hungarian,
it has 25 cases.  Japanese was worse but for different reasons,
mainly the writing, which they borrowed from the chinese, it is pretty
much for us westerners rote memorization of MANY thousands of arbitrarily
shaped pictograms if we want to be able to read anything but children's
books, (note: I am not talking about the phonetic alphabet they have,
but the ideographic one.)

I remember when German was the thing to learn for your PhD, I was constantly
told I was/should take German in College so I would be ready.  Of course
my parents were _required_, as probably everyone was then, to take Latin
in High School _and_ college, in addition to some other foreign language
like french,spanish or german, the Latin was supposed to be "useful" in
everyday life and later scholarship.

Things do change, and I wouldn't be suprised to see new ideas about the
languages to know in twenty years.  We have had Latin, French, German,
and now English touted as the thing to know, maybe then it will be
Japanese.  Or Arabic. 8-)


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