| Pages sur ce sujet: [1 2] > | Poll: Will instant translation technology reduce our motivation to learn languages? Auteur du fil: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Will instant translation technology reduce our motivation to learn languages?".
View the poll results »
| | | | | No, I don't think so | Nov 3, 2025 |
My age and consequently the era in which I have been living mean that technology does not discourage me, but I wonder what will happen to today's young people. For example, there is a new trend in Portugal to educate children in private international schools where all teaching is in English, and this being exacerbated by the ‘language’ of social media I wonder what will happen to my beloved Portuguese language...
| | | | | Concordo plenamente :( | Nov 3, 2025 |
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida wrote:
My age and consequently the era in which I have been living mean that technology does not discourage me, but I wonder what will happen to today's young people. For example, there is a new trend in Portugal to educate children in private international schools where all teaching is in English, and this being exacerbated by the ‘language’ of social media I wonder what will happen to my beloved Portuguese language...
| | | | Mónica Algazi 
Uruguay
Local time: 12:22
Membre
anglais vers espagnol
+ ...
| Passion for languages | Nov 3, 2025 |
never withers.
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I don't learn languages just to translate words, I learn languages because I want to know a whole lot more than words from other cultures, from other people, from other ways to see the world, from other ideas and thoughts, and from other experiences.
Reducing language learning just to translation is impoverishing languages and diminishing the role languages have not only in thinking processes but also in the creation of identities, whether collective and cultural or individual and d... See more I don't learn languages just to translate words, I learn languages because I want to know a whole lot more than words from other cultures, from other people, from other ways to see the world, from other ideas and thoughts, and from other experiences.
Reducing language learning just to translation is impoverishing languages and diminishing the role languages have not only in thinking processes but also in the creation of identities, whether collective and cultural or individual and diverse.
Please, it's enough with AI ripping apart the whole translation industry, don't do the same with languages, and especially not in here! ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I don't think so | Nov 4, 2025 |
Most people have little if any motivation to learn languages. They view it as a chore, or something to be avoided if at all possible. You can't reduce something that isn't there.
On the other hand, people who are motivated to learn languages - like my esteemed colleagues on these forums - won't be put off by shortcuts. On the contrary, they will deploy their knowledge and expertise to evaluate and criticise the performance of the robot translators. So their motivation is likely to i... See more Most people have little if any motivation to learn languages. They view it as a chore, or something to be avoided if at all possible. You can't reduce something that isn't there.
On the other hand, people who are motivated to learn languages - like my esteemed colleagues on these forums - won't be put off by shortcuts. On the contrary, they will deploy their knowledge and expertise to evaluate and criticise the performance of the robot translators. So their motivation is likely to increase, not decrease. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnie-Herzegovine
Local time: 17:22
anglais vers français
+ ...
Philip Lees wrote:
Most people have little if any motivation to learn languages. They view it as a chore, or something to be avoided if at all possible. You can't reduce something that isn't there.
On the other hand, people who are motivated to learn languages - like my esteemed colleagues on these forums - won't be put off by shortcuts. On the contrary, they will deploy their knowledge and expertise to evaluate and criticise the performance of the robot translators. So their motivation is likely to increase, not decrease.
Actually, I never took notice of how creative, beautiful and infinitely intelligent humans are until AI started taking over the Globe. Thank you to AI for opening my eyes.
| | | | | No, because AI doesn't enable you to SPEAK the language | Nov 4, 2025 |
Translating a document is one thing, speaking is another
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ProZ.com Staff wrote:
This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Will instant translation technology reduce our motivation to learn languages?". View the poll results »
Technology has not nothing to do with anything. The invention of the wheel was "technology". Our motivation to learn languages has got nothing to do with technology.
As a matter of fact I am thinking about going to lessons to learn Irish. "Technology" had nothing to do with that - unless you include seeing things about the Irish language on TV/social media.
[Edited at 2025-11-04 09:03 GMT]
| | | | Gregor Trebec
Slovénie
Local time: 17:22
anglais vers slovène
+ ...
It will be concentrated on English. That's one way to learn foreign language, i guess, but i am more concerned what will happen to 'little' languages. In my country Slovenian is spoken by about 1 million people! Imagine, just 1 million against English used in social media.
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnie-Herzegovine
Local time: 17:22
anglais vers français
+ ...
| Government’s job and duty | Nov 4, 2025 |
Gregor Trebec wrote:
It will be concentrated on English. That's one way to learn foreign language, i guess, but i am more concerned what will happen to 'little' languages. In my country Slovenian is spoken by about 1 million people! Imagine, just 1 million against English used in social media.
It’s Government’s duty to write policies, give supoort funds, etc. to preserve its language and heritage. May be anything from language courses to supporting young talented writers and poets whose pieces of work will stay for the generations to come to read and consume. “Small” languages are particularly vulnerable to this, and therefore special attention should be given to all this on the policy level.
| | | | | Beat this: 20,261 | Nov 4, 2025 |
Gregor Trebec wrote:
It will be concentrated on English. That's one way to learn foreign language, i guess, but i am more concerned what will happen to 'little' languages. In my country Slovenian is spoken by about 1 million people! Imagine, just 1 million against English used in social media.
Within the Gaeltacht areas (the west of Ireland) in 2022, only 20,261 people living there reported speaking Irish daily outside the education system.
The British did their best to kill off the Irish language. From the 1700s they suppressed Irish by making English the official language in law, schooling, and economics. They made English the language of courts, education, and employment; Irish was punished or discouraged in schools and public life. The Famine of the 1840s hastened its decline by encouraging emigrants to learn English. By 1900, the Irish language only survived in remote areas.
But now it's on the way back. We don't want to see it die.
[Edited at 2025-11-04 13:38 GMT]
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Liena V.
Lettonie
Local time: 18:22
Membre (2014)
français vers letton/lette
+ ...
| Small languages | Nov 4, 2025 |
Latvian teenagers already speak largely in English among themselves (due to lack of reading habits and too much time spent online), some even have difficulties to express themselves in their mother tongue or follow learning content at school. Concerns about it have been raised in public, but so far the discussions boil down to "well, they're teenagers..."
I don't know how much a government or any institution can do about it, especially when a lot of parents do not see anything wrong with i... See more Latvian teenagers already speak largely in English among themselves (due to lack of reading habits and too much time spent online), some even have difficulties to express themselves in their mother tongue or follow learning content at school. Concerns about it have been raised in public, but so far the discussions boil down to "well, they're teenagers..."
I don't know how much a government or any institution can do about it, especially when a lot of parents do not see anything wrong with it. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Baran Keki
Turquie
Local time: 18:22
Membre
anglais vers turc
| Very interesting | Nov 4, 2025 |
Liena Vijupe wrote:
Latvian teenagers already speak largely in English among themselves (due to lack of reading habits and too much time spent online), some even have difficulties to express themselves in their mother tongue or follow learning content at school. Concerns about it have been raised in public, but so far the discussions boil down to "well, they're teenagers..."
I don't know how much a government or any institution can do about it, especially when a lot of parents do not see anything wrong with it.
By contrast, most Turkish teenagers can't speak/read English to save their lives despite having all kinds of resources available to them..
The education system here got well and truly fucked in the last 25 years since the Islamists took over, but I personally blame the Turkish TV series/soap operas for Turkish youngsters' inability to express themselves in English, but in a kind of Turkish that is very different from my younger days.
If you Latvians start producing your own TV series in 3 hours length (that's excluding the commercials) with shit lots of fillers where beautiful dumb women talking bullshit and macho dickheads bullying one another and force all that shit down those wannabe teenagers' throats through national TV, you'll save your language in no time.
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Lingua 5B wrote:
Gregor Trebec wrote:
It will be concentrated on English. That's one way to learn foreign language, i guess, but i am more concerned what will happen to 'little' languages. In my country Slovenian is spoken by about 1 million people! Imagine, just 1 million against English used in social media.
It’s Government’s duty to write policies, give supoort funds, etc. to preserve its language and heritage. May be anything from language courses to supporting young talented writers and poets whose pieces of work will stay for the generations to come to read and consume. “Small” languages are particularly vulnerable to this, and therefore special attention should be given to all this on the policy level.
I agree about policies needed to keep small languages alive, but I really don't know how much any government can do with a public budget against the English-speaking tech companies investing billions (yeah, with a B) of dollars in all the English-native AI tools.
It seems AI development is sort of resembling colonization in Latin America that vanished most of the pre-Columbian cultures, people, and languages.
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