Programmers dictionary/lexicon for non native speakers

Question

I\'m not an English speaker, and I\'m not very good at English. I\'m self thought. I have not worked together with others on a common codebase. I don\'t have any friends who pro

Answer 1

Other non English people out here:

How have you managed to cope with this?

Good naming in code matters. Using English is the preferred, but if you don't know English very well the result could be counterproductive.

I had a friend who just guessed what the correct name would be and the result was horrible. ie

String employiiNeim; // employeeName
int  eich;           // age

The problem with English, is that is not pronounced as written ( french have this minor ... ehrm characteristic ) Other languages like Spanish, German, Dutch, and others, do type and pronounce every letter in the word.

This becomes particular relevant when what you are coding are business rules or business models. In this case it is much better to use your native language.

String nombreEmpleado;
int edad;

Way much better, specially when you work with others.

Have you studied English so well it's not a problem?

Yeap, there is no other way, and a lot of practice.

You can study English the same way you study programming languages though. You can have a teacher and attend to a class room and study an hour a day. Or ( what I did ) you can just grab something that is interesting to you and try to understand it. For instance, you have a small document describing something you care, you read blogs or read content here at StackOverflow, you translate a song you like, etc. etc.

All these are study forms. There is no other way, you won't wake up one day and say: "...I know kung fu" I mean, and say: ..."I know English"

Or have you read so much code naming comes natural?

Also helps, but if you don't understand what the code means, you ... well won't make any progress.

You'll learn the programming language, and that will help you to understand English bit better, but won't help you to learn it. That's because when we program we learn the programming language not the native language.

Or discussed a lot with English speakers?

Eerhh..nope. If you have that chance go ahead, it will improve your listening and speaking, but not necessarily your writting.

The most effective way to improve your English vocabulary and grammar is by READING ( reading in your native language also improves your own language btw )

So, I would say, read as much as you can. Use your native language while you gain more confidence, and keep studying.

The English will come with time.

Answer 2

If you are worried about it in terms of naming your own objects, just think of what your native word is for what you want to do, then go get an english language translation dictionary, and use the english language version.

Answer 3

Documenting your code with excellent prose like your question above will go a long way!

If you stick to common design patterns endemic to the language, platform, and architecture for which you're working with, other engineers should understand your nomenclature fairly easily.