来源：沟通翻译公司
英国许多大学里提供的专业语言课程急剧下降，正好促使像谷歌翻译这样免费翻译软件的崛起，毕竟，人们不愿意花费几年时间去学习那些能用谷歌软件交流的第二语言，比如当你可以用手机点餐："CAN I HAVE SOME CHIPS?"完全不用面对不懂葡萄服务员的失望招手说："POSSO TER UM POUCO CHIPS?"
显然，这是绝对是一种误导。谷歌翻译是不能替代外语的学习，原因有下：
1、 谷歌在线翻译只能在有网的时候工作，如果你没有认真的学习一门语言，不管你有没有在大学里温习，你能跟一个法国人交流仅仅是在线上， 在脱机状态下，你极有可能寸步难行。
2、谷歌翻译无法翻译格律，如果它能完成《伊帕内玛姑娘》（最初来自葡萄牙的歌曲）的英译本，法兰克·西纳特拉（美国歌手及演员）估计就能低唱出没有音律的歌曲。
3、如果人人都依赖谷歌翻译，考察交流将会成为过去时。
4、在谷歌翻译中，"Sixty Two"译成菲律宾语是数词"62"，这显然是没有人会使用
5、 联合国峰会进程也会严重减慢，因为译者必须把每个人说的话输入电脑才能知道他们究竟讲了些什么。这也将造成代表们之间的沉默。几乎可以肯定，这将导致无法挽回的后果。
6、 谷歌翻译能教你说外语脏话。然而，只有说本土语的人才能告诉你正确发音以及所伴随的手势。
7、 即使谷歌翻译不断更新改进，其正确性仍无法保证。
8、 若是人人都用谷歌翻译，欧洲电视网面临倒闭危机。
9、 法语"Se taper le cul par terre"指的是哄然大笑。而按照谷歌翻译，它的意思是屁股磕地。由此可见，逐字翻译会引起极大误解。
10、学习语言能让你发挥潜能，做事如履平地。
原文：
The number of British universities offering specialist modern-language courses is in sharp decline. Is it possible that this collapse might be partly down to the rise of free software such as Google Translate? After all, why waste several years of your life perfecting every last conversational nuance of a second language when you can listlessly prod "CAN I HAVE SOME CHIPS?" on to your phone and then wave a screen reading "POSSO TER UM POUCO CHIPS?" in the face of a disappointed Portuguese waiter?
Obviously, this is terribly misguided. Google Translate will never be any substitute for learning a foreign language, and here's why:
1 Google Translate is only good when there's internet. Without seriously learning a language, all you could say to a French person offline is whatever you memorised at school. In my case this would amount to "bank", "swimming pool" and "Hello my name is Stuart, I am 11 years old".
2 If Google Translate had been responsible for the English version of The Girl From Ipanema (originally, in Portuguese, Garota de Ipanema), Frank Sinatra would have had to croon "Girl in the golden body, sun From Ipanema, The It swung its more than a poem", which doesn't really scan as well.
3 If everybody relied on Google Translate, exchange trips would become a thing of the past. You'd miss that mutely chainsmoking 14-year-old Belgian boy with a full beard who glowers at you from the kitchen table.
4 "Sixty Two" translated into Filipino on Google Translate comes out as the numerals "62". This is clearly no use to anybody.
5 United Nations summits would slow to a crawl, because translators would have to type everything anyone said into the internet to figure out what was going on. The icy silences this would create between delegates would almost definitely result in all-out, planet-ending war.
6 Although Google Translate can teach you foreign swearwords, only a native speaker can show you the proper intonation and the right aggressive hand gestures to accompany them.
7 Even though it has improved a lot over the years, there's still no real guarantee of accuracy. There's still a worry that, if you visited a doctor on holiday with a sore throat and used Google Translate to list your symptoms, he would end up amputating your legs.
8 Who would present Eurovision if everyone used Google Translate? A robot? That would be madness.
9 The French phrase "Se taper le cul par terre" means to laugh uproariously. According to Google Translate, though, it means "Ass banging on the floor". There is literally no end to the disasters that could arise from this misunderstanding.
10 By learning a language, you are guaranteeing yourself a lifetime of being able to walk past Rosetta Stone concessions in shopping centres without feeling like a horrible veiny blob of wasted potential, as I usually do.
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