Localized (Visual) Programming Language For Kids?

First time accepted submitter jimshatt writes "I want my kids to play around with programming languages. To teach them basic concepts like loops and subroutines and the likes. My 8-year-old daughter in particular. I've tried Scratch and some other visual languages, but I think she might be turned off by the English language. Having to learn English as well as a programming language at the same time might be just a little too much. I'd really like to have a programming language that is easy to learn, and localized or localizable. Preferably cross-platform, or browser-based, so she can show her work at school (Windows) as well as work on in at home (Debian Linux). By the way, she speaks Dutch and Danish, so preferably one of those languages (but if it's localizable I can translate it myself). Any suggestions?"

Re:Stop

[DarkDust]

This is encouraging, not forcing. So I'm all for it. If a friend of my father hadn't introduced me to programming at age of 7, I would have missed something that soon turned into a passion and is now my day job. That was the most important event in my life, second only to my birth. You have to give kids the chance to try something to see whether they like it, like chemistry or electronic kits. If they like it, great! If not, so what.

Scratch is still your best bet.

[Spottywot]

Either translate it yourself from the source code, it's not a huge language, or just accept the fact that she will have to learn English along the way. She will be learning a new language anyway, so what does it matter what language she uses to label new concepts. Loop, string etc...can't be a huge problem for her as she is bilingual anyway.

Just "Learn English"

[Anonymous Coward]

.. no programming language requires you to "learn English", they require you to know a handful of keywords.

Also, at 8 years old, they should already know English or start learning it anyways, it's a language pretty much everyone on the planet will need and the earlier you start learning it the easier it will be for you to learn it properly.

You are wrong in that it matters

[Anonymous Coward]

I learned programming long before knowing english. It doesn't make any difference, keywords are just symbols you have to understand what they do. The fact that 'for' stands for an english word doesn't mean a non-programmer can look at the source code and see what 'for' does or the implications it has.

Re:Just "Learn English"

[Anonymous Coward]

Prob is, Dutch and Danish are cute "local" languages. She's gonna have to learn English, so better do it now while she's a kid and can handle it.

You should teach her English

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi,

I may be dismissed as an imperialistic pig for saying that, but I've written on why it is important to avoid localised programming languages [shlomifish.org] because it is becoming more and more important to learn English as soon as possible. Just for the record, English is not my mother language (I am Israeli and my mother language is Hebrew), and yet I think that learning English is an increasingly important skill, and also communicate primarily in English in my Internet interactions, and most of home-site [shlomifish.org] and blogs are written in English. Whether you like it or not, I believe English has been becoming what Aramaic was in the Near East [shlomifish.org] from the time of the Neo-Babylonian Empire [wikipedia.org] up to Arab times.

I suggest you invest the time in teaching your daughter English first, which is of far greater utility than programming, and is also absolutely necessary for learning to program (or for most other fields of science, technology and endeavour).

Re: Stop

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with doing things right the first time is that nobody appreciates just how damn difficult it was.