How would a student's knowledge of biology be different...

completely the same? science doesn't change because of the language people are explaining it in lol.

But it does in a way, the concepts may be the same, but the french biology student will know technical terms in french and the english biology student will know technical terms in english.

So this does in a way affect your knowledge? Does it not?

I doubt it really lol because most of them are either latin or can be directly translated like vein, heart, lungs, sugar all have an equivalent word in French

Exactly, if you are translating words it does affect your knowledge. You know what the structure outside a plant cell is called in english (cell wall) but they don't, they only know what it's called in french.

I agree the concepts are no different, they will learn the same concepts. It's just the labels they apply are different.

ye but if you're going to study in France you'd know French and your home country's language. And if you live in france and want to study there you probably aren't leaving the country. And if you did want to in the future you'd have to learn the language of the country you want to move to anyway. So it doesn't make a difference lol.

But surely it has to...

The fact you don't know any technical biology words in french right now, clearly shows it does. Kids the UK who learn biology at GCSE are used to hearing words such as enzyme, cell membrane, cytoplasm etc etc. The same can't be said for french biology students.

If they were fluent in French and English it wouldn't matter though. It would just be a communication problem trying to explain stuff to people from other countries.

If will affect your knowledge of vocabulary, not biology.

It's a serious communication problem. Unless we resort to drawing out what we mean by language, then everyone sees clearly.

ye but the communication problem applies to literally everything lol. you'd have to draw a picture of mcdonalds to tell someone you want a mcburger.

If 2 biologists from different countries met and didn't know each other's language they'd be able to communicate through biology by drawing pictures of cell structures as they both have the same knowledge of the subject because they've both been taught the same things lol (just with different names). Even if they can't understand anything else about each other.

I think the best way to sum it up is this...

1) they both know the same concepts
2) the language they know those concepts in is different

So their knowledge of biology is the same but different in a way, if that makes sense.

Please elaborate.

Thanks.

completely the same? science doesn't change because of the language people are explaining it in lol.

But it does in a way, the concepts may be the same, but the french biology student will know technical terms in french and the english biology student will know technical terms in english.
So this does in a way affect your knowledge? Does it not?

Exactly, if you are translating words it does affect your knowledge. You know what the structure outside a plant cell is called in english (cell wall) but they don't, they only know what it's called in french.

I agree the concepts are no different, they will learn the same concepts. It's just the labels they apply are different.

I think the best way to sum it up is this...

1) they both know the same concepts
2) the language they know those concepts in is different

So their knowledge of biology is the same but different in a way, if that makes sense.

See below. It's been answered several times by others and yourself.

So there knowledge is different? How would you put it, mr professor?

I can't really say its the same but different.

No, their language is different, their knowledge is the same.

You put it well yourself: the concepts are the shared but the labels attached to them are different.

You may be labouring under linguistic relativity, the idea that the particular words you use shape the way you think. It is basically nonsense.

What is true is your perception of biology is different depending on the language you learn it in.

Some kids may love biology because the subject has relatively short words (english etc) and some kids may hate biology because it has long words (german etc)