Monday Morning: Technical English for Developers

Good morning! It’s Monday — the perfect time to sharpen your technical English so you can communicate confidently in code reviews, stand-ups, and Slack threads all week.

Word of the Day: deprecate

IPA: /ˈdep.rɪ.keɪt/
Vietnamese: loại bỏ dần (một tính năng/API), đánh dấu là sẽ xóa trong tương lai
Part of speech: verb → deprecate / deprecated / deprecating
Related forms: deprecation (n), deprecated (adj)

Examples in context

  1. “We’re deprecating this endpoint in v3 — please migrate to /api/v3/users before the cutoff.”
  2. “The function is deprecated — use the new async version instead to avoid breaking changes.”
  3. “Please migrate before we deprecate the legacy auth flow next quarter.”

Quick tip: “Deprecated” is NOT the same as “deleted.” Deprecated means: still works today, but will be removed in a future version. Always check the deprecation timeline!

Vocabulary Table: 5 Essential Technical Phrases

PhraseVietnameseExample sentence
refactortái cấu trúc code mà không thay đổi behavior”I need to refactor this module before adding new features.”
merge conflictxung đột khi gộp code từ hai nhánh khác nhau”I got a merge conflict in the config file — can you help resolve it?“
breaking changethay đổi không tương thích ngược (client cũ bị lỗi)“This PR introduces a breaking change to the public API.”
ship ittriển khai / phát hành ngay bây giờ”The tests pass and the demo looks great — let’s ship it!“
tech debtnợ kỹ thuật tích lũy do shortcuts / giải pháp tạm thời”We need to allocate a sprint to pay down some tech debt.”

Extra context: when to use each phrase

  • Refactor → use in planning, PR descriptions, sprint grooming (“let’s refactor the auth layer”)
  • Merge conflict → use in stand-ups and pair programming (“hit a merge conflict on the feature branch”)
  • Breaking change → use in changelogs, release notes, PR reviews (“flag this as a breaking change in the CHANGELOG”)
  • Ship it → casual team communication, celebrating progress (“QA approved — ship it! 🚀”)
  • Tech debt → planning sessions, retrospectives (“adding this shortcut will create tech debt”)

Pronunciation Guide

Focus word: deprecate — stress is on the first syllable.

  • ✅ /ˈDEP-rɪ-keɪt/ ← correct
  • ❌ /dep-RI-keɪt/ ← common mistake

Practice sentence — read this aloud 3 times, emphasizing the stressed syllables:

“We plan to dep-recate the legacy endpoint and re-factor the auth module to avoid tech debt.”

Bonus pronunciation pairs (common confusion):

  • refactor /riːˈfæk.tər/ — stress on second syllable: re-FAC-tor
  • conflict /ˈkɒn.flɪkt/ — stress on first syllable: CON-flict
  • deprecation /ˌdep.rɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/ — stress on third syllable: dep-ri-CA-tion

Exercises

Exercise 1: Fill in the Blank

Complete these developer Slack messages and PR comments using today’s vocabulary. Choose from: deprecate, refactor, merge conflict, breaking change, ship it, tech debt.

  1. “Heads up — we’re planning to _______ the v1 API by end of Q3. Start migrating to v2 now.”
  2. “Before we add the new payment gateway, we really need to _______ the billing module — it’s a mess.”
  3. “I can’t push yet. I have a _______ in package-lock.json. Resolving it now.”
  4. “This change removes the userId field from the response object. That’s a _______ — we need to version this.”
  5. “All CI checks are green, staging looks perfect. Let’s _______ !”
  6. “We skipped unit tests to hit the deadline. We know — it’s _______ we’ll fix next sprint.”
✅ Check your answers
  1. deprecate — “we’re planning to deprecate the v1 API”
  2. refactor — “we really need to refactor the billing module”
  3. merge conflict — “I have a merge conflict in package-lock.json”
  4. breaking change — “That’s a breaking change — we need to version this”
  5. ship it — “Let’s ship it!”
  6. tech debt — “it’s tech debt we’ll fix next sprint”

Exercise 2: Translate — Code Review Thread

A Vietnamese developer wrote these code review comments. Translate them into natural English.

  1. “Hàm này cần được tái cấu trúc lại. Logic quá phức tạp và khó test.”
  2. “Thay đổi này sẽ làm vỡ API hiện tại. Chúng ta cần thêm versioning.”
  3. “Chúng ta có thể đánh dấu deprecated method này không? Client mới nên dùng fetchUserV2().”
  4. “Code này là nợ kỹ thuật — hoạt động được nhưng cần refactor trong sprint tới.”
  5. “Tôi có xung đột merge trong file constants.js. Bạn có thể review và giúp giải quyết không?”
✅ Sample translations
  1. “This function needs to be refactored. The logic is too complex and hard to test.”
  2. “This change will break the existing API. We need to add versioning.”
  3. “Can we mark this method as deprecated? New clients should use fetchUserV2() instead.”
  4. “This code is tech debt — it works for now, but we need to refactor it in the next sprint.”
  5. “I have a merge conflict in constants.js. Could you review it and help me resolve it?”

Tip: Notice “Can we…?” and “Could you…?” — these are polite request forms used in professional code reviews. More natural than “Please do X.”

Idiom of the Day

”Bite off more than you can chew”

Vietnamese: Nhận quá nhiều việc so với khả năng có thể xử lý
Literal meaning: Cắn một miếng to hơn khả năng nhai

In tech contexts:

  • “We bit off more than we could chew with this sprint — we planned 40 story points but only have capacity for 25.”
  • “Don’t bite off more than you can chew when estimating. It’s better to under-promise and over-deliver.”
  • “The team bit off more than they could chew by agreeing to three major features before the product launch.”

Related expressions:

  • “over-commit” (nhận nhiều hơn khả năng — same meaning, more formal)
  • “biting bullets” ≠ “biting off more than you can chew” — don’t confuse them!
  • “under-promise, over-deliver” (the solution: promise less, deliver more)

Want to build stronger technical English? These channels use real developer vocabulary:

  1. Fireship (YouTube) — Super fast, modern dev content. Great for hearing technical terms used naturally in context. Start with: “Git in 100 Seconds”
  2. TechLead (YouTube) — Former Google/Facebook engineer discusses tech career, system design, and workplace English. Good for professional communication vocabulary.
  3. CS Dojo (YouTube) — Clear explanations of coding concepts in plain English. Ideal for hearing how to explain technical topics, not just use jargon.

Study tip: Watch once for content, once for language. Pause on phrases you’d use at work and repeat them aloud.

Daily Challenge

Write a PR (Pull Request) description in English using all three of these words:

  • refactor
  • deprecate
  • breaking change

Template to fill in:

## What this PR does
[Your description using "refactor"]

## Breaking changes
[Your description using "breaking change"]

## Migration guide
[Your description using "deprecate"]

Example answer:

What this PR does: Refactors the authentication module to use the new JWT library. The old session-based approach was hard to maintain and scale.

Breaking changes: This is a breaking change — the login() function now returns a Promise instead of a callback. Update all call sites before merging.

Migration guide: We’re deprecating auth.loginCallback() in this release. It will be removed in v4.0. Please migrate to auth.login() (async/await) before then.

Quick Recap

Today’s wordMeaningUse it when
deprecatemark as “will be removed”API versioning, release notes
refactorrestructure code, same behaviorsprint planning, PRs
merge conflicttwo branches edited same filestand-ups, pair programming
breaking changeold clients will failchangelogs, PR reviews
ship itdeploy / release nowcelebrating, decision moments
tech debtshortcuts that need fixing laterretros, planning
(idiom) bite off more than you can chewtake on too muchestimation, sprint planning

See you at noon for more Communication Phrases! 🗣️

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