Happened to stumble across Mango Languages last night. It seems to be a nicely constructed site for language instruction. Once upon a time I worked for a firm headquartered in Germany, and had taken some company-sponsored language lessons, so I poked around in the first-level German module. One of the things I noticed right away was that translation was required in both directions. First, I was asked to translate from English to German. Then, after practicing a phrase, I was asked to translate from German back to English. This was easy for the first couple of phrases, but became increasingly difficult as I had to juggle more and more words in my head. I gave up halfway through the lesson as it was getting late, and my head was starting to hurt. However, someone fluent in both languages has obviously mastered the translation going in either direction.
All engineers deal at some level with the language of their particular engineering specialty, as well as the language of mathematics. Fluency in math provides magnificent tools for creating and analyzing new engineering methods. However, my recent experience as a graduate student (as well as two decades as a design engineer) leads me to believe that the emphasis is too heavily focused on the making the translation from physical reality into the language of mathematics. Once the math domain has been entered, there is little effort to move back into the physical domain. This seems to me a great oversight, as I consider engineers to be those who function primarily in the physical realm, rather than the mathematical domain. I love the beauty of mathematics, but I fear that the current generation of engineers may lack much substantive understanding of how to convert mathematical results into an enhanced understanding of physical realities. Many of my classmates fail to “see” how a problem solution relates to any real-world situation.
On the other hand, I frequently find myself struggling for hours trying to make the connection between a solution and its physical meaning. Often times the available textbooks and reference materials made it sound as though this connection should be immediately clear to the reader. It drives me crazy when technical material makes no concession for those of us who are not yet be completely fluent in the “language.” Since learning is a lifelong process, all of us should be constantly entering domains to which we have not been previously exposed. While the use of a particular method or technique may be plain-as-day to its creator, it’s often not nearly so obvious to those of us struggling to acquire an understanding of the new concept. So I suppose this post should serve as a reminder for myself to keep looking for better ways to describe technical concepts in a manner that novices can comprehend, and that experts will still find insightful. I’m not sure that it can be done at the same time, or via the same communication method, but surely there has to be a better way.