Will Google Translate Make Learning Other Languages Obsolete?

Google Translate or Neural Machine Translation has made much progress lately. However, it will never make learning a foreign language obsolete.

Suppose you ask 100 people about the value of Google Translate (GT). In that case, you will hear a lot of different adjectives: great, funny, inaccurate, fantastic, no idiom recognition, lack of subtlety, notoriously bad, thoroughly inept, surprisingly accurate, etc. To give an objective evaluation for?GT?is not possible because it has so many applications, and in each one, it shows different properties. So, it is better to elaborate on when to use?GT?and avoid it.

You should avoid?GT?whenever your reputation is at stake: in legal contracts, medical documents, presentations, meetings, or websites. When should I use GT? Use GT if you need a sense of what the paper in a foreign language is discussing or communicating with a foreigner on general topics.

GT?is an excellent tool for learning foreign languages because it could be built-in the mobile app and used to translate words, sentences, paragraphs, or the whole lesson into your native language to make the lesson comprehensible. In this case (check this app:?https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.lbt.ch_full ), the translation is shown for a limited time and never pronounced in the native language since the primary purpose of translation is to create visual images of unknown words and then to experience them in the target language. In contrast to the traditional bilingual coursebooks, the use of?GT?eliminates cross-translation and helps learners to start thinking in English from the start.

Is it possible to use?GT?for synchronous interpretation of spoken language?

GT?is not designed to translate real-time speech in one language into another language. Microsoft’s translator does it. However, it is not the simultaneous interpretation in real-time: it just waits until the end of the sentence and then translates. This stop-and-go mode of operation changes our subconscious reaction to incoming information into a conscious one when we interpret it according to our abilities: knowledge of the language, experience in communication, own world view, and so on.

Could Microsoft Translator ever reach the quality that will allow us to use it on an industrial level for authentic international communications? Theoretically never! Communication takes place on conscious and subconscious levels. When communicating, a person visualizes the thoughts and feelings he is trying to verbalize so that his counterpart can also comprehend or visualize the same picture. His body language, rhythm, speech speed, facial expression, and hands movements, and many other non-verbal components are significant for comprehending the speech and creating the same picture in our mind.

If the other person’s communication requires you to understand something you don’t know, you will substitute the unknown word and understand as best you can. Again, this is partly a subconscious process, so you’re not aware you’re doing it. Microsoft translator is not capable of doing it. It will improve the quality of oral translation in the future and be used for small talk. However, it will never reach the point of being used for face-to-face discussion of essential issues in business, politics, medicine, etc.

GT?has improved international communication and resulted in an implicit impact on the importance of knowing foreign languages. Business communication in the global economy is carried out in English. Out of four people taking part in such communication, three are non-native English speakers.?GT?is a valuable tool in preparation for such business communications; however, neither GT nor Microsoft Translator could ever reach the subtlety and complexity of human translation. They would be used as tools but not a substitute for communicating in English as a Global Language.

It would be helpful if the management of Microsoft Translator and Google Translate would clearly state that their services are not designed to eliminate the need to learn foreign languages.