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Will language study become unnecessary? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5735 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 41 of 45 07 March 2010 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
No, I haven't, but I imagine it's similar to a lot of the things I'm seeing here and elsewhere in the world. You can be sure that this is the most efficient solution for SOMEONE (most likely the business owner), or else they wouldn't do it. Maybe it's not ideal for you. Wait a couple of years, until technology becomes better and cheaper, and then maybe they'll have a more efficient solution for you too! Oh, no, wait, you don't want technology to progress, I remember.
Not really. You say everything more than rikaichan is overkill, and you shouldn't venture some paths, technologically. Wait a thousand years, and I'm sure by then today's life will look hardly any better than a cavemens'. So really, where's the difference? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Sayumi Groupie Japan Joined 5418 days ago 51 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Japanese | Message 42 of 45 07 March 2010 at 2:28pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Not really. You say everything more than rikaichan is overkill, and you shouldn't venture some paths, technologically. Wait a thousand years, and I'm sure by then today's life will look hardly any better than a cavemens'. So really, where's the difference?[/QUOTE] How do you know there'll even be humans to make that comparison? Language learning tools probably won't kill anyone, but weapons of all sorts will. Bio-chemical weapons, for one. MT is still dangerous, though. You can say goodbye to the professors ideal polyglot academy. First they killed philology, now the want to change linguistics to focus only on computational linguistics and UC. In fact, you don't even need MT, as most professors don't even bother learning the languages the structures of which they compare in their books. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5735 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 43 of 45 07 March 2010 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yeah, and life-saving machines can save lifes. Once again it comes down to the people, and not the technology.
Oh, good heavens, who would want to live in a world in which professors couldn't teach useless and obsoleted subjects anymore?! Like the long-lost but sorely missed art of finding the best cave to raise a family! Oh noes! Man, seriously, this particular point is mute anyway, since language-learning won't be going out of business, but is it really so hard for you to accept that technology isn't evil and won't eat your babies? Edited by Pyx on 07 March 2010 at 2:43pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Sayumi Groupie Japan Joined 5418 days ago 51 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Japanese | Message 44 of 45 07 March 2010 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I'm not saying technology is evil. Just that technology is blind. And so are people, apparently, because technology can have unintended but nonetheless destructive consequences.
Cosmology is useless. Let's get rid of that subject! Why not? Because it has to do with NUMBERS, you'd argue. And, as we all know, mathematics is the only thing that really matters, right? Linguists should know several languages. If you're a contrastive or comparative linguist, you should know at least the languages you're trying to compare or contrast. Edited by Sayumi on 07 March 2010 at 3:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| guesto Groupie Australia Joined 5741 days ago 76 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 45 of 45 08 March 2010 at 6:06am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Even if these translators become perfect, that won't render language learning unnecessary. It may change its standing in society though... To build, service and improve machines there needs to be someone who understands what's going on behind the scenes, even if most people don't have a clue. Most people have no idea how a cellphone works, but someone obviously does or they wouldn't exist and keep getting smaller and so on... So keep learning languages, but maybe learn some maths or programming too...
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