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Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Croeso and Welcome.
Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today, the subject is …
Will AI Kill Language Learning in 2024?
We all know that the AI language models, now constantly in our midst, are capable of a lot and that includes generating information in many languages, possibly all by now, but does that mean that there is no longer any need to learn languages, at all, because AI can do it for us?
Honestly, I think the answer to that question depends on you. Learning languages will continue if people want to continue to do it. But let’s take a step back first.
At this point in time, the AI models all have a significant number of flaws. Not least the fact that they can hallucinate. Yes, that’s what people are calling it. In other words, sometimes they literally make things up that aren’t true. So, taking that to its logical conclusion, they could make things up about the language you’re learning that aren’t true. I don’t know if that’s happened yet, but the possibility is there.
Another factor is that they are taking all their information from what they have scraped online. Now, I don’t know, for certain, if they are taking an average of all the resources on a foreign language to give you the correct response to, say, a grammar query, but what if not all the resources they’re using are correct, or clear, or something important is missed out? All these things are possible. You could get an incomplete, or incorrect response to your language query. Again, I’m not saying these things have happened, but they could.
And just to take Google Translate as a simple example. When I’m using it, I find that it often defaults to Passato Remoto, rather than Passato Prossimo in Italian, and that it defaults to male agreements, even if what I initially put in to check had a female agreement. So, that’s less than perfect.
However, let’s be generous and assume that these things are correct 99% of the time.
As things currently stand, I imagine that the casual language learner, who only wants to know a few words for a two-week holiday abroad is likely to rely on AI in the future to be their translator, rather than spending the time to learn those few phrases they need. It’s akin to carrying around a phrase book, but probably more efficient, because searching a phrase book for a correct phrase could take a lot longer.
What about people going on business trips to foreign countries? Well, language here is more important, because contracts may depend upon what is said. I’m sure there are a lot of meetings that are conducted in English, when at least one of the parties isn’t a native speaker. In those where both parties don’t speak a language the other understands, using AI to translate back and forth might be a solution, if both sides find that acceptable, but what if they don’t? Well, someone’s going to actually have to have learnt a language enough that they can communicate.
If you were going to go and live in a country for a longer period of time, would using AI being efficient, or acceptable? I imagine always asking an app to translate for you would soon become tiresome and those you were talking to might just give up and walk away. Unless, of course, you have some kind of futuristic AI glasses where you can see the text of what they say immediately and they could do the same for you. Although, eye contact between you might be a little less than satisfactory. Eye contact is important for communication. Nothing more shifty than someone who can’t look you in they eye, right? I think you’d probably be best learning the language properly in this situation.
But what about learning languages for the fun of it? If you find it a fun activity, why would you give it up and rely on AI? That seems like complete and utter madness to me.
For that reason, I don’t think language learning is going anywhere soon.
That’s all for today. Don’t forget to join me again next time, for more tips, tricks and tales and in the meantime, check out the A Language Learning Tale YouTube channel for additional, non-podcast content.
Ciao, salut, hwyl and bye for now.