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Douglas Hofstadter, a polyglot and polymath writer, has argued that something profound will vanish when people talk through machines. He describes giving a halting, difficult speech in Mandarin, which required a lot of work but offered a sense of accomplishment at the end. Who would boast of taking a helicopter to the top of Mount Everest?
精通多种语言且通晓多门学科的作家道格拉斯·霍夫斯塔特认为，当人们通过机器进行对话，语言背后的深刻性也在消弥。他说他曾用普通话很艰难地发表了一段磕磕巴巴的演讲，这需要付出大量努力，但完成后带来了一种成就感。毕竟，谁会因为坐着直升机登上珠穆朗玛峰而感到自豪呢？
Others are less worried. Most people do not move abroad or have the kind of sustained contact with a foreign culture that requires them to put in the work to become fluent. Nor do most people learn languages for the purpose of humanising themselves or training their brains. On their holiday, they just want a beer and the spaghetti carbonara without incident (and sometimes without gluten).
其他人则不那么担心。大多数人不会移居国外，也不会与外国文化有持续的接触，因此不需要投入大量精力让自己能流利地说外语。大多数人学习语言也不是为了教化自己或者训练自己的大脑。他们只想在度假的时候能够顺利点上啤酒和培根蛋酱意大利面（有时也希望去掉麸质蛋白）。
As AI translation becomes an even more popular labour-saving tool, people will split into two groups. There will be those who want to stretch their minds, immerse themselves in other cultures or force their thinking into new pathways. This lot will still take on language study, often aided by technology.
随着人工智能翻译成为一种更大众化的省力工具，人们也将分成两种阵营。一类人想要拓展自己的思维，沉浸在其他文化中，或者强迫自己以新的方式思考。这些人通常会借助科技手段来继续语言学习。
Others will look at learning a new language with a mix of admiration and puzzlement, as they might with extreme endurance sports: "Good for you, if that's your thing, but a bit painful for my taste." This is largely an Anglophone problem, since native English-speakers miss out on the benefits of language-learning most acutely.
另一类人会怀着既钦佩又困惑的心情看待外语学习，就像他们对极限耐力运动的看法一样："如果你喜欢的话，那你挺棒的，但对我来说有点痛苦。"这在很大程度上是英语文化圈的问题，因为英语母语者最大程度地错过了语言学习的好处。
In many countries, including Britain and America, schools' and universities' foreign-language departments have been closing. (The British government recently devoted a modest fund to trying to get more secondary-school pupils to study foreign languages.)
在包括英国和美国在内的许多国家，学校和大学的外语系一直在关停。（为推动更多中学生学习外语，英国政府近期只投入了一小笔资金。）
In the rest of the rich world, there is one thriving language that people still study: English. And in poorer countries, many people are multilingual as a matter of course; Africans and Indians learn languages because they are surrounded by them.
在其他较为富裕的地方，人们仍在学习一种热门的语言：英语。在较贫穷的国家，许多人理所当然地会说多种语言；非洲人和印度人学习多门语言是因为他们本来就生活在多语环境中。
But a focus on the learner alone misses the fundamentally social nature of language. It is a bit like analysing the benefits of close relationships to heart-health but overlooking the inherent value of those bonds themselves. When you try to ask directions in broken Japanese or mangle a joke in halting German, you are making direct contact with someone.
但是，只关注学习者本身就忽略了语言根本的社交属性。这有点像分析亲密关系对心脏健康的好处，但忽视了这些关系本身的内在价值。当你试图用蹩脚的日语问路，或者用磕磕巴巴的德语讲笑话时，你是在和别人直接地接触。
And when you speak a language well enough to tell a story with perfect timing or put subtle shading on an argument, that connection is more profound still. The best relationships do not require an intermediary.
如果你精通一门语言，用这门语言讲故事可以完美把控节奏，或者在论述时讲出微妙差异，这种联系会更加深刻。最好的关系并不需要任何媒介。
