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Will language study become unnecessary? | ||
Tags: Google | Translation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Sayumi Groupie Japan Joined 5420 days ago 51 posts - 75 votes  Speaks: Japanese | Message 33 of 45 07 March 2010 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Annoyances? These are military grade threats. A single attacker has (at least theoretically) the power to bring down an entire country and you're telling me that's fine because, hey, we put Men on the Moon!? Sure we did. Whether it was worth the expense, however, is a different matter altogether. But sine I wasn't alive back then I can't really can't comment on that. All I am saying is that we must rethink our way of life. There are certain areas into which we shouldn't, nay, mustn't venture. Doing something just because you can is dangerous and, quite frankly, puerile. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5737 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 34 of 45 07 March 2010 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Pray tell, what would these areas be? I don't know what your native language is, but you're in Japan, and I'm in China. We couldn't have this exchange right now without these technologies. You most likely would be very hard pressed to learn Japanese or English, or whatever you're learning, without these technologies. Wait until you're older and see how technologies will enrich, and possibly safe your life, and those of your loved ones. Should we really not venture there, just because some evil people could possible use it for their evil designs? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sayumi Groupie Japan Joined 5420 days ago 51 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Japanese | Message 35 of 45 07 March 2010 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Courtesy of Google Translate: 英语是我的母语
Machine Translation, for one. Anything above Rikai-chan (it's a Firefox extension) and Yahoo! 辞書 poses a threat to all language learners. Think about it. If all we allow ourselves to be concerned with is efficiency, why not fire all those part-time workers at McDonald's? Why not fire all bank clerks? Edited by Sayumi on 07 March 2010 at 1:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Vinlander Groupie Canada Joined 5823 days ago 62 posts - 69 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 36 of 45 07 March 2010 at 1:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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You guys are acting like children. This kinda of tech is a good thing. English won`t take over the world and no one will be disadvantage for speaking a languages. People that speak hindi will no longer need to learn English for work. Plus you guys aren`t seeing the side of this where language learning can become much easier as well. The internet didn`t change talking to people, it just because another avenue for thoughts and ideas. People will learn languages out of interest, just the same as most hobbies today are not pratical this will be the same
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| Sayumi Groupie Japan Joined 5420 days ago 51 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Japanese | Message 37 of 45 07 March 2010 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Language learning isn't just a hobby. Often very talented people devote their entire lives to this scholarly pursuit.
In today's age, when most people have the attention span of fruit fly, wouldn't it be ridiculous not to assume good quality machine translation would put millions of people out of business? Edited by Sayumi on 07 March 2010 at 3:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 38 of 45 07 March 2010 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Interest, what interest? Learning languages is boring as far as I am concerned. I never liked it. (That's why I chat here during the times I mean to study....) I am just interested in the end result which allows me to talk to people I could run into in or near my own country or in work situations. Possibly also access culture of neighbouring countries and improve career prospects. Plus I come from a small country with a little known language. If I lived in North America where everyone speaks English, the world language, and where knowing languages is a rarity, then I'd probably be tempted to ignore it completely and learn some other practically useful skill instead. Become a Cordon Bleu cook or a wizard at some cool technology. Else I'd just pick ONE language like Chinese and spend all my efforts on that and get to native level proficiency. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5737 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 39 of 45 07 March 2010 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
A threat? Seriously? Is google translate holding a gun to your head? Nobody will be "threatened" even if language learning were to become obsolete (which I'm sure won't be in the near future. Or else I probably wouldn't bother - I see that like Cordelia). In the worst case, language learning will just be a hobby, not something you "have" to do, to do or experience certain things. Now that's a worst-case scenario I can stand behind!
I don't mean to disappoint you, but we still have bank clerks and part-time workers at McDonalds BECAUSE this is the most efficient thing to do. You can bet your ass that as soon as a more efficient solution comes along, they'll be ditched in no time. So much for the cold facts, now for what I suppose your real question to be: Is this a good thing? Yes, a thousand times yes. The opposite way would mean stick to the bare essentials, without regard to efficiency, which would come down to us sitting in caves, grunting, hunting and gathering. I, for one, am all for technology and will be the first one to greet our robotic overlords! :) Edited by Pyx on 07 March 2010 at 1:38pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sayumi Groupie Japan Joined 5420 days ago 51 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Japanese | Message 40 of 45 07 March 2010 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's bull. Have you ever been to a ramen shop? One of those where you buy meal tickets at vending machines and hand them to the cook? As for bank clerks, I agree that maybe their not inefficient. The only reason being of course the fact that they like to play dumb when you ask them why the hell the 10k that were sent to your account is taking 10 days to arrive! I'm not saying we should stick to the bare essentials. That's a straw man. Edited by Sayumi on 07 March 2010 at 3:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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