Picture this:

Your brain is throwing a secret party. The guests are languages from different continents, each dressed and styled in their own unique way. After a ceremonial bow, each one takes its cozy corner in your head, curiously eyeing the DJ who’s warming up. The Eastern beauties—Chinese, Japanese, and Korean—are true artists: vivid and imaginative. Naturally, this creative crowd prefers to hang out in the right hemisphere of the brain, where expressiveness and fantasy reign supreme.

And your brain is totally vibing, floating off somewhere. Pure bliss. Learning a bunch of different languages isn’t just a fun party—it’s a real workout too. Sure, it takes a decent chunk of time (oh well… no, oh my!), but your brain transforms into a genuine superhero with incredible abilities. This superbrain can not only dance and sing folk songs from around the world, but also run fast and jump high like an athlete.

A child’s brain isn’t just a galaxy—it’s the cosmos!

Children’s brains are a whole different story! They’re like superhero sponges that soak up languages easier than we gulp down our morning coffee. A kid growing up in a multilingual family doesn’t even bat an eye at the fact that Dad speaks one language, Mom speaks another, and Grandma speaks a third or even a fifth language. And grandpa might just stay silent in some special language of his own, sparing the world from the uncertainty of his thoughts.

A child’s brain is pure white magic! It juggles grammar and vocabulary like a circus performer, never gets tangled up between languages, and somehow manages to stay incredibly flexible. For children, learning languages isn’t stressful—it’s an adventure! The main things for them are chatting with their parents, exploring the world, and having fun while doing it. And playing while they’re at it. Languages? Pfft, that’s so easy when you’re a bright wizard!

What does the AI era whisper?

However, here emerges an intriguing puzzle of our time. On one hand, artificial intelligence translates faster than lightning and seems poised to send translators into retirement soon. Some even whisper, as if afraid that some Alexa might overhear from around the corner: “Why bother learning languages at all if AI does it better than us?”

And Alexa listens, taking mental notes. But for now, she only speaks when asked. Meanwhile, she’s probably thinking: “But wait a minute! Maybe it’s not just about translation? When your brain throws that language party, it doesn’t just translate words—it thinks differently, feels anew, sees the world through a different lens!”

So we get a dilemma worthy of Sherlock Holmes: trust languages to smart machines or keep training our sometimes lazy brains? Who knows, who knows? Personally, I have absolutely no idea.