Have you ever wondered why some people are good at literature but performed badly at mathematics? They can interpret and analyse literature to a level that many people cannot achieve. However, there are also seemingly, other people who can do mathematical computation mathematics with ease but failed drastically at text-base reading subjects. What is the difference between these two groups of people who through their learning ability reflects that they are normal? The answer could lies in the way they perceive mathematics.
The language of mathematics is a language filled with abbreviations. Mathematical symbols are used to represent implied meanings. Short-form notations are used to shorten lengthy mathematical formula and operations. An example is education mathematics trigonometry.
“Tan A” is an abbreviated way to express the meaning of “take the ratio of the opposite length of an angle A to the adjacent length of the same angle A”.
Therefore to understand and solve mathematical questions, one has to learn the language of mathematics in order to “talk” to them. It is similar to the case of a Japanese man speaking in the Japanese language to, say, an Indian man who does not understand the Japanese language. When one understood the mathematics language, he should not have any future problem dealing with the subject given his learning ability in other text-based fields. However, it should be noted that without the unique style of mathematics language, presentation of calculations and its workings will become tedious if expressed in the English text-base form.
For elementary schools, this unique language may not be obvious and can be explained and written in simple English. However, when one proceeds forward to high school or even university where he deals with advance mathematics in, maybe, engineering or finance, the presentation of the workings is not possible in the English language. One has to convert this long string of computation into mathematical expressions filled with short-form notations and symbols to shorten the presentation of ideas and solutions.
In conclusion, mathematics is not a difficult subject to handle in terms of teaching and learning. It is only difficult when one does not understand what mathematics is “talking” about. So in order for one to master mathematics, the answer is to understand its language in the abbreviated written style to minimise the “How to Solve” questionings.