Ask HN: How much English must you know to use modern programming languages?
2 comments
To use mainstream languages not so much. But to understand documentation is a different kettle of fish. That’s why it’s also good if documentation pages have code snippets
However, learning a language, and working with a team are different.
Even many codebases written by teams with a shared non-English first language use English for variable/function/class names. It's much easier to understand a codebase if you understand what the terms used in naming represent. However, this is another case where if you spend enough time in the codebase, you may just learn that certain terms represent certain concepts, even if you don't actually know how to translate the terms themselves. The same goes for standard libraries and third party package ecosystems.
And for learning, language barrier is even more problematic. English is dominant for resources like documentation, tutorials, and Q&A sites. Some of those are difficult enough to parse for native speakers; I can't imagine Google Translate makes them particularly accessible.