Since I started learning languages in high school, I've always had great respect for those who teach language, especially their native one. It can't be easy listening to people butcher something that comes naturally to you, and for such low pay. It gets even more interesting and difficult if, like in this story, your class is composed of individuals with nothing else in common besides learning the language.
I used to think I could be an English teacher to speakers of other languages, but I don't think I have the patience. I'll stick to being a language learner for as long as I can afford it.
A little context about why I should read this would be nice. The story doesn't immediately draw you in, and after the first few paragraphs I don't see how this is related to hackernews.
It's a nice story and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but I can't really provide much insight into why this belongs here any more than any other arbitrary well-written short story. Maybe because he's studying computer science and his mom thinks languages are a waste of time?
> Maybe because he's studying computer science and his mom thinks languages are a waste of time?
Very close. I feel that studying regular computer languages is not as exciting and challenging as studying a real spoken language.
I was encouraged to post this by the article about "Learning French" from earlier today (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17682100). In the article, it cites an analogy to those Internet ads promising language acquisition in X days or even X months as akin to those that promote the magical X day diet.
I felt that this particular fiction piece was a beautiful representation of the stumbling/halting/humbling/unsteady progression up the intermediate mountain slope of language acquisition, as one progresses from being able to talk solely in the present to describe events in the past and ideas and concepts.
To be able to express yourself in a non-native language, even if done imperfectly and garbled-ly, is a win if the other person is able to get the gist of what you are saying. Eventually, you will be able to have those deep conversations and little stories about your life (good and bad) that you already do among friends in your native language. I'm not there yet (in Spanish), and I've come a long way in 3 years.
Thanks for the response. I didn't want to come off as a curmudgeon, but there is far too much content on the internet to just read longer form articles without any context at all(beyond being posted on hn). I'll give it a shot.
Newspapers can pivot to literary soaps!