Overnight finished the “Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages” Audible audiobook.
Also have the Kindle book version, I got it in October for $1.99 on sale, now back at regular price of $15.64.
One great thing about the Audible is the narrator, George Backman, fluently pronounces the examples of all the different languages.
The author, Gaston Dorren, is Dutch and can speak six languages and read nine more.
He wrote the Dutch and English versions himself.
There’s a chapter for each language, except Japanese which has two, he says Japanese may be the most difficult language to master.
He thinks there’s a good chance AI will render the need to learn other more than one language unnecessary.
From the end of the book:
“Give AI another decade or so and it may be good enough to convince many people learning English is not essential – and it will almost certainly reinforce the belief of many native English speakers they needn’t learn anything other than English.
And is that a good thing?
It’s a great loss for both sides!
Then as now, most native English speakers will miss out on the joys of bilingualism – the mental agility, better understanding of other cultures and the endless surprises of a second language.
But those who depend on their AI Babel chip to understand English will lose out, too.
It’s an infuriating language to learn, even if you’re Dutch, but once mastered it’s an awesome thing.
You can read fine literature from many parts of the world and experience many of the best films first-hand.
I may struggle with Shakespeare’s Elizabethan language, but give me a Wodehouse novel and I’m a happy man when, having just railed with the best against the excesses of English vocabulary, I’ll come upon a passage like this: ‘Intoxicated? The word did not express it by a mile. He was oiled, boiled, fried, plastered, whiffled, sozzled and blotto.’
Try putting that in your Babel fish.”
… …
Own comment – believe English should become the worldwide first language. People will be free to study and use other languages as desired. Earthwide use of one first language will increase communication and understanding thereby increasing wealth and decreasing wars.
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