I’m fully on board with this. I only speak English, but I took Latin classes from 4th through 12th grade and I don’t think I learned any useful translation skills from that in the slightest. HOWEVER my Latin teacher in high school loved talking about the culture of ancient Rome and how that was impacted by/reflected in the Latin language.
As a programmer, I have learned a number of different programming languages and my favorite class in college was “Programming Languages” because of how different languages reflect and simultaneously determine different ways of thinking about a problem.
A language is a tool, and if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If the only way you can talk about things is the way you and the people you’re immediately surrounded by talk, then you only have a hammer in your toolbelt and you likely can’t even think about the problem in more than one way, let alone talk about it in more than one way.
More people would be more open minded, understanding, and worldly if they all learned to be fluent in at least a second language.
I’m fully on board with this. I only speak English, but I took Latin classes from 4th through 12th grade and I don’t think I learned any useful translation skills from that in the slightest. HOWEVER my Latin teacher in high school loved talking about the culture of ancient Rome and how that was impacted by/reflected in the Latin language.
As a programmer, I have learned a number of different programming languages and my favorite class in college was “Programming Languages” because of how different languages reflect and simultaneously determine different ways of thinking about a problem.
A language is a tool, and if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If the only way you can talk about things is the way you and the people you’re immediately surrounded by talk, then you only have a hammer in your toolbelt and you likely can’t even think about the problem in more than one way, let alone talk about it in more than one way.
More people would be more open minded, understanding, and worldly if they all learned to be fluent in at least a second language.