Comment by jordanb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jordanb | Hacker News Reader

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I used Google Translate to not learn French in collage. Fortunately for me it was bad enough I had to carefully review all its outputs, but that still didn't help and I managed to pass two semesters without ever developing even basic language skills.

Something radical needs to be done. When I was in high school there were still a lot of "no calculator" restrictions in my math classes that I chaffed at because I hated doing longform arithmetic and felt like it got in the way of learning. So I can certainly understand how students would chafe at some kind of paper-only education system but I also don't see how you can learn anything when you have a high-quality homework machine just sitting there.

I wish that would have worked for me - we had oral tests. 2 years of French in high school and one semester at college - what an absolute waste of time. How much French do I know now? Basically none. The same goes for everyone in my life that did Spanish instead in high school.

Part of what we could do during this upset is re-prioritize.

Wow, really?

I took four years of Spanish in high school, and thirty-ish years later I can hold basic conversations with people, ask for things, answer their questions.

I’m about the same age as you and at a similar level of ability at this point. I tested out of all 16 credit hours of foreign language requirements at my university but my current Spanish skills are nowhere near what will be required of me to function well in Mexico when we retire there.

In California Google Translate would not have been (and still is not) sufficient to pass a high-school foreign language class, let alone a college level class.

All that's needed is a tight feedback loop between learning and applying those skills ... the thing that Google Translate helped you evade. AI can be a tool for evading or optimizing that loop, like a knife can cut your sandwich or your throat. Your choice.

It's the "your choice" that's the problem. The quality of a society is dominated by the choices that other people make.

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