Question

I’m wondering if productivity can be correlated to whether a programmer is a native English speaker or not. I work in Japan and I can tell you that Japanese programmers struggle in getting the English part of a language (reserved keywords, function names, tutorials etc), it’s just not natural for them and their thinking process is slow down by a language mapping overhead. Can you share your experience in dealing with non-native English speaker programmers, is it easy to overcome this barrier or will native English speakers forever have a little advantage?

Answer 1

I’m not a native speaker of English, yet I’ve been quite productive as a programmer in many countries (including the USA, where I live and work now)… but that’s because I’ve always put some effort into being as good at English as my non-native-speaker condition will allow. I do believe a strong competence in English helps performance in programming (and many other kinds of engineering — I started out designing chips and HW systems — and more generally “knowledge work”) in many, many ways.

As a recognized authority in Python, and pretty strong in C++ and other programming languages as well, I’m often asked “what language should I study to enhance my career”… and my answer’s long been “English”!!!

I give this answer to native speakers, too: the amount of careless (or dyslexia-caused, it’s hard to tell) spelling mistakes, syntax bloopers, and malapropisms of all kinds, that I’ve seen perpetrated by native speakers of English, isn’t much lower than the number I’ve observed from my fellow non-native-speakers. Each such mistake hurts communication effectiveness and precision… and knowledge work (including programming) is about communication first and foremost!