The question hits me more and more often these days—especially when I tell students, colleagues, or even strangers that I studied literature in French for over a decade and now live and work in France:

“Why bother learning a foreign language now that we have Google Translate or ChatGPT?”

Or more recently, and with a tone of real curiosity, not judgment:

“Do you think studying abroad still matters, now that we can work anywhere remotely and understand anything with real-time translation?”

It’s true that as a triple major, I had the “practical” option to appease my parents: mathematics. I specialized in differential equations and complex analysis. Guess what I use more in my daily life today: that or French?

So, every time I get these sorts of questions, I think the same thing: I understand where they’re coming from, but they’re missing a crucial point.

Language learning is not about translation.

We don’t learn languages because we want to say “I’d like a croissant” with native precision (though it helps, especially to know that the French translation of what we call a “chocolate croissant” is not in fact “croissant au chocolat” — that one got me a bunch of laughs when I first visited Paris in 2007!). We learn languages because we want to live in another world. Not visit it—live in it. Understand how people make meaning there. Think alongside them.

Real language learning—the kind that moves beyond grammar drills and into identity—isn’t just about vocabulary and syntax. It’s about developing what anthropologists might call cultural competence, and what I might call empathy at scale. It’s about experiencing what it feels like to express joy, grief, humor, awkwardness, or desire in words that aren’t your own. And all of this allows you to realize that, despite the nuances of any language or culture, us humans are all more or less the same. And as someone who’s learned 5 languages to date, I am comforted by this fact in our increasingly polarized world.

When I read Raymond Queneau or Victor Hugo in French or Italo Calvino in Italian or Mario Vargas Llosa in Spanish, I’m not just processing information. I’m learning how these intellectuals have historically framed questions of identity, power, memory, and space. I’m inhabiting not just a different voice, but a different worldview.

AI (and human beings for that matter!) might be able to translate their words. But it can’t make you feel the gesture behind those words. The social context. The generational echoes.

Study abroad isn’t about leaving home—it’s about building a new one.

When I studied abroad, and later moved to France, the most powerful lessons had nothing to do with academics (indeed, I was more than disappointed with how little I was learning in French university classes…). They were about getting lost, trying to open a bank account, understanding why store clerks say “bonjour” before anything else—and realizing that failing at all these things taught me more than any textbook could.

Living in another country is a lesson in humility. You have to rebuild your sense of competence from scratch. You have to ask for help. You have to listen more than you speak.

But eventually, slowly, you start to belong—not just in language, but in context. You learn how humor works. How small talk works. How time works.

These aren’t things a translation app can teach you. They’re things you learn by being there, trying, failing, and trying again.

Recently, I had my entretien d’assimilation to obtain my French nationality (don’t get excited — it’s been almost 3 years since I submitted my application and I still don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel!) and when asked why I wanted to become French, my answer surprised myself: if you were to tell me tomorrow that I had to go back to the USA, I wouldn’t know where to call home. It’s been 18 years since I lived in my hometown of Buffalo, NY, 14 years since I lived in Baltimore, MD for college, and over 7 years since my final year in Princeton, NJ for my PhD. While each of those locations holds a special place in my heart, they’ve changed. As have I. France is my home now.

We need language learning now more than ever.

In a world increasingly filtered through screens, prone to flattening difference in the name of efficiency, language learning might just be one of the most radical things we can do.

It requires patience. Vulnerability. Respect for ambiguity. And a willingness to think with others, not just about them.

Sure, AI tools can help us communicate faster. And I use them! I’ve even written blog posts about how they can streamline course design and reduce the barrier to entry for learners and instructors alike.

But they are tools—not replacements for real connection, real cultural insight, or the real joy of understanding someone on their terms.

In Closing

Learning a language won’t just help you order a coffee or negotiate a work contract in another country. It will help you think differently—more expansively, more compassionately, more curiously.

And studying abroad isn’t about tourism or resume padding. It’s about building a second (or third, or fourth) way of seeing the world.

So yes—AI is here. Yes—it can translate faster than any of us.

But it still can’t do what a semester abroad, a real conversation, or a long evening reading Camus in the original French can do.

And frankly, I hope it never will.