I learned a lot about English when studying French in college. Like a lot of English I "learned" by hearing other people and conversing growing up, but when I learned about the rules in French it made me think a lot about those same rules in English.

There's a difference between wanting to do it, and needing to do it. Yes some people will want to. Will a computer effectively translate when speaking to someone so you don't have to you if you don't want to? That would be great.

And knowing more words/languages expands your capability for thought.

Language is more than just some sounds and scribbles that directly translate to person's/places/things. It is very often impossible to express exactly the same thought in a different language because the idea itself has cultural context and meaning imbued by the language.

For example, in English we would say "I like bananas". In Spanish the closest translation is "me gusta bananas," but those are fundamentally two different statements. In English, you are the subject taking affirmative action on the object (banana) by "liking" it. In Spanish, you are instead the passive object being acted upon by the subject (the banana) which is "pleasing" you (gustar ~ to please). Think about that, it seems subtle but consider the implications of being passive, acted upon by the world vs being active, acting up on the world.

I agree. When I studied Japanese I realized that the verb is at the end of the sentence, forcing the listener to pay attention until the end.

I like this take. Hard to call a guy a luddite who chooses not to use technology only so he himself can learn more.

Although, if you judged someone else for using a translator instead of learning multiple language though you'd circle right back to luddite because then you'd be shaming the use of technology at that point.

I'm thinking learning is great but people only have so much sand in their hourglass to spend and even if they aren't studying Portuguese they could be studying something else instead.

Also a universal translator can't exist because if you made one I'd invent a dumb language just to say the device can't interpret it.

> cultural context

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Diplomacy would suffer massively if we used software translation exclusively. And I wouldn’t want a psychologist who was unable to understand you without a software program.

You also learn how to think differently. Each language has its own way of describing the world. Hard to explain without being bilingual.

Agree. Fwiw I feel like chatgpt takes culture into consideration and translate euphemism pretty well. Where Google translates stuff literally and a lot will get lost in translation.

At least learn some funny curse words and phrases to hit on people and fun or interesting things like Schadenfreude and Razbliuto and Yugen and Hygge. It's cool to find out about other cultures.

What are the underlying mechanisms? How would the potential to 'learn cultural context and see things differently' by learning a language compare to the potential to learn about other cultures and encounter different ways of seeing things by communicating with people from other cultures through a universal translator?

Wanting to be able to do things yourself makes you a “Luddite” now? You tech bros are corny as hell.

Why? Language is just a friction that stop us from communicating, why did we learn how to stop washing clothes by hand? Or run instead of flying?

It's just a block, something that makes life harder, not easier. It's a tool, you would learn far more if you could talk to everyone, far more perspectives and ways of looking at thing's.

People would understand each other better, less misunderstandings. You don't sound like a Luddite, you sound like someone that thinks the status quo has a benefit, just because it had been this way, not because it has an actual benefit.