How do polyglot programmers successfully use languages?

I write code with second languages like how I speak a foreign language (e.g German). I think of what I want to say in English, then translate it to German.

How do my fellow devRanters do it?

I dont know how other people do it but I know programing in terms of concepts and I express thoes concepts in a language to build a program. For example I think in terms of a loop then I go okay does it have a defined end okay ill use that construct in the language i am using at the time.

If you translate (most of the time) English to German in your head it just means you are not that good yet.

Once you master it the German words will come to you naturally, without thinking of the English equivalent first.

That's one of the reasons polyglots may randomly mix words from different languages when they speak.

The same should apply to programming languages, I believe.

@nickpapoutsis @Artemix Yep, languages require a lot of time and effort, almost more than most things I've learned in my lifetime.

I tend to accidentally mix Ruby/Python syntax a lot. Doesn't happen with JS though (somehow syntax with curly braces occupy a unique mindspace of its own).

The worst thing is:

Oh i can solve this with construct X from language Y, fuck language Z doesn't have this.

I know a fair amount of languages but for me to be able to switch and instantly get into the flow of that language took a bit of practice to get right.