外语还值得学吗？ | 双语阅读

在这个全球说英语和即时翻译应用盛行的时代，还有必要花大力气学其他外语吗？又该选择哪门语言呢？今天，英国《金融时报》专栏作家西蒙•库柏来给我们分享他的看法。Photo credit: Getty Images1My 13-year-old daughter has just discovered noun cases in German. What had previously seemed a friendly language (“the man” is der Mann) suddenly pulls off the mask to reveal an insanely involved grammar: den Mann, dem Mann, des Mannes. And because schools are perverse, she is starting this journey exactly at the age when a child’s inborn language-learning ability nosedives. Years of pain lie ahead.我13岁的女儿刚刚接触了德语的名词变格。这门之前看似友好的语言（比如英语的男人“the man”在德语里是“der Mann”）突然扯下面具，露出狰狞的复杂语法：den Mann, dem Mann ………………………………