I thought I knew how to study. I mean, not that I am that quick and never forget stuff. Yeah, right, I wish. But I can sit with my books for a long time, and I am good at not blowing it all off the very next week. Now, that’s me, at your service. This is my real superpower. And honestly, I am proud of it. Well, I was. Up until last November.
Several months ago, I somehow ended up at a Python workshop for beginners. I just wanted to see whether I could manage when everything was in Czech. Eight hours proved that: 1) Czech was not a problem, 2) that whole programming thing – it just might have something to it.
There are lots of courses on the Internet, but I went my own way – I bought lots of books. I learned the basics quickly. I even remembered something (it appears that for an ordinary secondary school we had an absolutely amazing Computer Studies course, kudos to my teacher). So a couple of weeks later, I did simple problems with cycles and functions.
And then came OOP. Things got complicated. To procrastinate with decency, I took up French and slipped happily back into my comfortable routine. Each of us, after all, has their own talents and destiny, right? Now, give me my favorite irregular verbs, please. And that dictionary over there. That’s all, you can go now.
And this, I suppose, is the major problem. On the one hand, I study all the time. On the other, all my projects of the last ten years – language exams, master’s degree, postgraduate program, training courses, and jobs – one way or another have been revolving around linguistics and translation in general.
The upshot is the following:
- I am used to reading and listening in great volumes.
- I am good at memorizing words, terminology, and general ideas.
- I move onto practical stuff after a prolonged preparatory phase (I start speaking after I have a relatively high level of listening comprehension, for example).
- I can learn something quickly, but superficially (a terribly useful skill when preparing for a translation gig).
- I understand crucial stuff gradually, often through the sheer volume of input.
- Just don’t give up – that’s my strategy.
It doesn’t work like that with programming. One must study differently. Painstakingly putting together tiny incomprehensible pieces of information. Systematically building and layering up data. Writing code. Right from the beginning. From day one. It turned out that my experience with languages does not help. It gets in the way even. Well, all except this “don’t give up” thing. Don’t give up is an eternal wisdom.
Hence the insight. The longer one studies something, the better and more productive they are. At the same time, all this productivity can hardly be magically transferred into different fields.
Insight #2. When some very cool people who work with nonlinguistic stuff tell me they need to learn or improve their language skills, I am always genuinely baffled. What exactly is the problem? After all that you have already learned? Really? Then my previous idea comes to mind and… nah, still don’t get it.
Insight #3. My life has definitely become richer. There is binary search, recursion, and parent classes. And it is just beautiful.