Translation is an essential tool for effective communication. A common way of getting any translation done is to turn to human translators. However, machine translators have developed rapidly in recent years. Many people claim that they will replace human translators soon. 【小题1】

Machines may fail to understand culture properly. Different cultures have different words that are unique to that specific culture. Machines cannot understand or recognize idioms, slang, and allusions (典故). 【小题2】 By contrast, human translators can find the suitable equivalent (对应物) in the target language based on the cultural background.

【小题3】 In different languages, there are words with various meanings, which can be a significant problem for machine translators. These words have to be placed in context to determine their true meanings and in many cases only human translators can do this. If you run a document with this kind of words through a machine translator, it may lead to inaccurate translations.

It is difficult to localize machines for different languages. New phrases are being developed in almost all languages. 【小题4】 If you feed new words into a machine translator, the machine might go “speechless” , trying to come up with the most appropriate way to translate the strange combination of words. Human translators, on the other hand, can pick up on the development in a language quickly.

It’s difficult for machines to distinguish style and tone. Every written document has a different style and tone. A document can have poetic, funny or persuasive style and tone. Machine translators may lose the intended style and tone existing in the original document. 【小题5】 And such a translation can hardly resonate (引起共鸣) with the person who reads it.

Reasons for Learning Professional English

English is not just used in everyday situations. 【小题1】 There are many reasons for learning professional English, even if you are not looking for an English-speaking job right away.

You will have better job choices. Many large businesses now require that you speak English, especially if they deal with any international customers or partners. 【小题2】

【小题3】 No matter where you are in the world, since so many people know at least a little bit of English, you can use the language to communicate.

You will have an easier time getting promotions. Even if you start at the bottom of a company where knowing English is not that important, you will have an easier time getting promoted if you know English. Many managers and other important company members must know English.

You will have the chance to work abroad. 【小题4】 Then getting a job there will be important. Knowing English will give you an important advantage when you are applying.

【小题5】 Let’s go for it!

As one of the most important languages in the world, Latin had humble beginnings. It originated along the Tiber River in Italy and only a handful of people spoke the language. Over time, Latin became more well-known as Romans gained political power. Many famous literary texts and scientific classifications were written in Latin. Even though knowing Latin indicated a person was educated, according to Britannica, in the 20th century far fewer people learned Latin, leading it to be classified as a “dead” language.

There are around 7,000 living languages in the world, but, according to Britannica, “more than half are at risk of dying out by the end of the 21st century.” Civilizations evolve over time and so do languages. More often than not, a language dies because everyone who speaks the language dies. For example, Marie Smith Jones, perhaps the last native speaker of the Alaskan Eyak language, died at the age of 89 in 2008, and so did the language. Now, fewer and fewer people speak Latin, which raises public’s awareness about its protection.

Actually, there are many other reasons as to why Latin should be protected or taught. “It is a window into a fascinating ancient civilization, and studying an ancient civilization teaches us to respect different points of view and unfamiliar cultural practices,” says Kathleen Coleman, James Loeb Professor of Harvard University.

Since it isn’t used in ordinary conversations, there are a lot of difficulties that arise from teaching Latin. “Teaching a ‘dead’ language is different from teaching other languages,” explains Coleman, “because there are no native speakers to show us how it sounds or answer questions about the meaning of words or explain idioms. Though it’s hard, fortunately, we still can find the answers to our questions from the broken evidence available in written texts.”