Writing for an Academic Discussion Do you believe the urgency and relevance of learning foreign languages will dwindle? - revised -

Do you believe the urgency and relevance of learning foreign languages will dwindle?

 

 

☆Let’s Think

1.        Your grandmother uses her phone during her travel in other countries. Is learning a language relevant to her?

2.        Fifty years ago, only businessmen stationed overseas saw the urgency to learn a foreign language. What about now?

3.        Why are you learning English?

4.        Do you use machine translation? Why?

 

 

☆Hints for Points

Yes

1.        The vocabulary of AI translation is often better than that of most of humans, and its speed is much faster than humans’.

2.        We can use the extra time saved by machine translation for other activities.

3.        Google translate is pretty good as long as the sentences are not complicated.

 

No

1.        Acquiring a foreign language is becoming a friend of the people who speak the language.

2.        AI cannot completely replace humans in intellectual linguistic activities in such aspects as wit, humor, and sarcasm.

3.        Language learning is for expanding your knowledge.

4.        People trust the person who speaks their language.

5.        We are getting more immigrants. Also, increasing number of young people aspire to work abroad.

 

 

☆Responses for Ideas and Expressions

【Thesis】I believe language learning for basic level communication that doesn’t require background information will become unnecessary for most people.

【Supporting Details】In fact, we are already communicating with people who speak foreign languages with the help of machine translation on social media. Some of the conversations are even in languages we have never heard of. Twitter used to translate most languages including minor ones before, and I hope it will recover the function soon. Also, Google Translate gives us translations of any combinations of languages, including minor languages. Even when the sentence you want to send is long and complicated, if you chop them into short sentences, you can get almost perfect translations. Moreover, AI beats most humans in terms of the size of vocabulary and the speed of coming up with an accurate word or expression.

【Conclusion】Therefore, those excruciating days of learning other languages will be gone for most of us who don’t need to have advanced levels of communication in foreign languages. (162 words)

 

【Thesis】I don’t think that learning foreign languages will become less meaningful or of urgent need, because of the increasing need of international discourse and cooperation.

【Supporting Details】To tackle international agendas like global warming and nuclear disarmament, people around the world need to understand the gravity of the issues and get motivated to work together for the survival of our species. For this, direct conversations between people who speak different languages are necessary. And here comes the necessity of language learning. Learning a language is not just for translation but also for mutual understanding and friendship between people with different cultures as Maria says. By speaking the language of the people that you are communicating with, you can overcome barriers in inter-cultural communication and earn trust and mutual understanding. This hardly happens when you communicate through each other’s phone speakers, which makes you look somewhat like aliens to each other.

【Conclusion】Thus, dwindling of the urgency and relevance of learning foreign language doesn’t seem to happen.  (163 words)