《经济学人》双语：人工智能如何影响外语学习？

原文标题：
Johnson
AI could make it less necessary to learn foreign languages
That is good news for travellers, bad news for soulful connection
约翰逊专栏
人工智能可以降低学习外语的必要性
这对旅行者来说是个好消息，但是对心灵交流来说是个坏消息

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ON HOLIDAY, MANY will find themselves in places where they do not speak the language.

度假时，很多人会发现自己身处语言不通的地方。

Once upon a time, they might have carried a phrasebook. The rise of English has made that less necessary.

以前，他们可能会随身携带一本常用语手册。英语的普及减少了这种需求。

But most people—at least seven of the world’s eight billion—still do not speak English.

但大多数人——全世界 80 亿人中至少有 7 亿人-——仍然不会说英语。

That leaves options like pantomime, a willingness to be surprised by what arrives at dinner—or, increasingly, technology.
这就留下了一些选择，比如用肢体语言示意、对晚餐中出现的东西感到惊讶--又或者是越来越多地使用科技。

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More and more people are using simple, free tools, not only to decode text but also to speak.

越来越多的人使用简单、免费的工具，不仅能解码文本，还能说话。

With these apps’ conversation mode, you talk into a phone and a spoken translation is heard moments later; the app can also listen for another language and produce a translation in yours.
通过这些应用程序的对话模式，你可以对着手机讲话，一会儿就能听到口语翻译；该应用还可以听其他语言并将其翻译成你的语言。

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You may still get a surprise or two.

你可能还会得到一两个惊喜。

Google Translate may be the best-known name in machine translation, but it often blunders.

谷歌翻译可能是机器翻译领域最知名的工具，但它经常出错。

Take “my wife is gluten-free,” the kind of thing you might say at a restaurant abroad.

就拿“我的妻子不吃麸质”来说，你可能会在国外的餐馆说这样的话。

In French or Italian, Google Translate renders this as “my wife is without gluten”—true to the words rather than the meaning.

在法语或意大利语中，谷歌翻译会将这句话翻译为“我的妻子没有麸质”——更注重字面意义而非真正的含义。

DeepL, a rival, does better, offering various options, most of them along the correct lines.
DeepL是谷歌翻译的竞争对手，它做得更好，提供各种选择，其中大部分翻译都是正确的。

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The best tool may not be a translation app at all.

最好的工具可能根本不是翻译APP。

Though not marketed for the purpose, ChatGPT, a generative AI system that churns out prose according to users’ prompts, is multilingual.

ChatGPT 是一种生成式 AI 系统，虽然它不是以翻译作为销售卖点，但它可以根据用户的提示指令生成散文，并且支持多种语言。

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Travel has long been a motivator for study—unless people start to feel AI tools offer a good-enough service.

长期以来，旅行一直是学习的动力--除非人们开始觉得人工智能工具提供的服务足够好。

Some are concerned that apps are turning language acquisition into a dwindling pursuit.

一些人担心应用程序正在使语言习得变成一种日渐式微的追求。

Douglas Hofstadter, a polyglot and polymath writer, has argued that something profound will vanish when people talk through machines.

道格拉斯·霍夫施塔特是一位通晓多种语言又博学的作家，他认为，当人们通过机器交谈时，一些深刻的东西就会消失。

He describes giving a halting, difficult speech in Mandarin, which required a lot of work but offered a sense of accomplishment at the end.

他描述了自己用普通话进行的一次磕磕绊绊、困难重重的演讲，虽然需要付出很多努力，但最后却能获得一种成就感。

Who would boast of taking a helicopter to the top of Mount Everest?
谁会吹嘘自己搭乘直升机登上珠穆朗玛峰的顶峰呢？

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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.

有些人则不太担心。大多数人不会移居国外，也不会长期接触外国文化，这样他们就没有必要花时间努力说流利的外语。

Nor do most people learn languages for the purpose of humanising themselves or training their brains.

大多数人学习语言的目的也不是为了让自己有人情味或者训练大脑。

On their holiday, they just want a beer and the spaghetti carbonara without incident (and sometimes without gluten).
度假时，他们只想喝杯啤酒、吃碗意大利培根蛋面，没有其他特殊需求（有时还要求不含麸质）。

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As AI translation becomes an even more popular labour-saving tool, people will split into two groups.

随着人工智能翻译成为一种越来越流行的省力神器，人们将分为两类。

There will be those who want to stretch their minds, immerse themselves in other cultures or force their thinking into new pathways.

其中一类人希望拓展自己的思维，沉浸于其他文化中，或者将自己的思维引入新的路径。

This lot will still take on language study, often aided by technology.

这些人往往会通过科技的帮助来学习语言。

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.”
另一类人则会对学习新语言抱有一种既敬佩又困惑的复杂心态，就像他们对待极限耐力运动一样：“如果那是你喜欢的事情，那很棒，但对我来说有点痛苦。”

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This is largely an Anglophone problem, since native English-speakers miss out on the benefits of language-learning most acutely.

这在很大程度上是英语国家的问题，因为以英语为母语的人最容易错过语言学习的好处。

In many countries, including Britain and America, schools’ and universities’ foreign-language departments have been closing.

在英美等国，中小学和大学的外语系都在关闭。

(The British government recently devoted a modest fund to trying to get more secondary-school pupils to study foreign languages.)

（英国政府最近拨款一笔小额资金，试图让更多的中学生学习外语。）

In the rest of the rich world, there is one thriving language that people still study: English.

在其他发达国家，人们仍在学习一种蓬勃发展的语言：英语。

And in poorer countries, many people are multilingual as a matter of course; Africans and Indians learn languages because they are surrounded by them.
在较贫穷的国家，许多人自然而然地会说多种语言。非洲人和印度人学习语言是因为他们处于多语言环境中。

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But a focus on the learner alone misses the fundamentally social nature of language.

只关注学习者本身就忽略了语言的社交本质。

It is a bit like analysing the benefits of close relationships to heart-health but overlooking the inherent value of those bonds themselves.

这有点像分析亲密关系对心脏健康的好处，却忽视了这些联系本身的内在价值。

When you try to ask directions in broken Japanese or mangle a joke in halting German, you are making direct contact with someone.

当你试图用蹩脚的日语问路或用结巴的德语开玩笑时，你就是在与他人直接接触。

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.

当你的语言说得足够流利，能够恰到好处地讲述一个故事，或为论点带来微妙的影响时，这种联系变得更加深刻。

The best relationships do not require an intermediary.
最好的关系不需要中介。

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量755左右）
原文出自：2023年8月19日《The Economist》Culture版块

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路

本文翻译整理: Irene

本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）
谷歌翻译Google Translate是一个由谷歌开发的免费在线翻译工具。它利用机器学习技术和大规模数据来提供准确和流畅的翻译结果。谷歌翻译支持超过100种语言之间的互译，包括英语、中文、法语、德语、日语等等。用户可以将文本、句子、网页或文件输入到谷歌翻译中，系统将自动识别语言并翻译成所需的目标语言。谷歌翻译还提供其他实用功能，包括语音输入和语音合成。用户可以用语音输入的方式向谷歌翻译提供文本，也可以通过语音合成功能将翻译结果以语音的形式播放出来。

DeepL是一款由德国公司DeepL GmbH开发的在线翻译工具。它采用了最先进的人工智能和机器学习技术，以提供高质量和准确的翻译结果。支持多种语言之间的翻译，包括英语、法语、德语、西班牙语、意大利语等等。它以其出色的翻译质量而闻名，被许多用户认为是其他翻译工具无法匹敌的。

【重点句子】（3个）
More and more people are using simple, free tools, not only to decode text but also to speak.
越来越多的人使用简单、免费的工具，不仅能解码文本，还能说话。

There will be those who want to stretch their minds, immerse themselves in other cultures or force their thinking into new pathways.
其中一类人希望拓展自己的思维，沉浸于其他文化中，或者将自己的思维引入新的路径。

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.
当你的语言说得足够流利，能够恰到好处地讲述一个故事，或为论点带来微妙的影响时，这种联系变得更加深刻。