［题目］Some people think that machine translation is highly developedintoday’s society. Therefore it is not necessary for childrentolearn a foreign language. What’s your opinion?

随着机器翻译技术的发展，孩子需要学习外语吗？

［雅思作文／写作范文］(Sample 1)

With the rapid development of modern science, computers havebeenplaying a more important role in our daily lives. It is suchaworldwide trend that there is no exception for Chinese.

Many people regard the computer as the magic machine. It cansolvemany problems quickly and efficiently², and best of all, itcantranslate all kinds of languages. By using the computer you canjustput ail¹ the original versions into it and then you will getthe fasttranslation. So some parents raise doubts about thenecessity fortheir children to learn foreign languages so hard anymore.

At first thought, it seems that the computers can really helpusto do so. But if you look in- sue the matter deeply, you may findadifferent answer. First of all, machines can never replacemankind.Computers are created by man and are controlled by humanbrains. Wecan never rely too much on machines; otherwise we willbecome theslave of them one day. On the contrary, we need to enrichourknowledge as much as possible so that we can catch up with thefastpace of the world. It is very necessary to learn more languagessoas to upgrade our abilities to follow the progress oftheworld.

And furthermore, it will do good to children if they learnmorelanguages. Both their brain and their thinking modules³ canbenefitfrom it. When they grow up, they can easily accept variouskinds ofcultures and communicate with foreigners, which canfavorablyenhance the mutual⁴ understanding and developinternationalbrotherhood.

So, we can clearly see that, though computers can begoodtranslators, people still need to learn more languages with aviewto improving their abilities and facilitating theirfuturecommunication with people from othercultures.

［雅思作文／写作范文］(Sample2)

An argument occasionally these days is that some peopleoftenthink machine translation can take place of the childrensstudy ofa foreign language. As far as I am concerned, I canttotally agreewith this opinion.

It first comes to the point that machine translation is nothighefficiency. The human language is so complex that nowadays nosuchmachine can translate one language to another sufficientlyandtotally. The machine can only provide some words or piecesofhalf-baked sentences. So we human beings, especially children,maynot rely on this kind of machine, at least recently.

On the other hand, if the real machine that the whole sentencecanbe translated completely turn to reality, children should notbetaught not study a foreign language. The reason is thelanguage(especially speaking) is made up of not only the grammarand wordsbut also tones and mood. And when children are studying alanguage,he is not discovering an unknown area, but wild his logicandideation. Additionally, even if the machine will be out of workoneday occasionally in future, he can talk with otherforeignersfreely.

Frankly⁵, the loss of language sensitivity is much popularthesedays. Many peoples speaking and grammar is terrible.Childrenoften study wrong speaking from annoying TV programs anduntrainedbroadcasters. The invention of translation machine willmake itworse. The problem whether to teach the boys and girlsforeignlanguages or not needs to be treated seriously.

In a word, in modern society the translation machine isstealingour sensitivity of the language. People should do somethingtoprevent the loss of language ability, especially inthechildhood.