DaemonR wrote:
The reasons why you learn a spoken language and why you learn a programming language are completely different. You learn a spoken language to communicate with people, you learn a programming language because it's practical or for learning experience.
Communicating with people is practical. When I came to the US for the first time English was very, very practical. My life depended on it. And it still does, but there's a world of difference between the amount of effort needed back then and now. It's become much, much easier.
You get learning experience with every new thing you learn. You also learn stuff for fun.
I learned programming for fun. At the beginning I did not even think of making it my career, something practical. I just enjoyed it. So far I've never had real practical need to speak Spanish as I don't live or work with people who only speak Spanish. But I learned it nonetheless. And then I went on to learn a bit of and about other languages. Why do I need all that if Russian and English are enough for me ~99% of the time? 'cause it's fun!
DaemonR wrote:
Regardless, it even deters people from learning spoken languages. Eg. A lot of people give up on learning Mandarin because the same words can have entirely different meanings just by slight differences in intonation.
True, there are some quite unconventional things that are hard to master when you need to obtain a lot of new knowledge and acquire new skills and when very little can be transferred from the past experience.