Hey it's Buono. Sunday. My oldest is at cram school prepping for middle school entrance exams, so I took my wife and 3-year-old daughter to the local mall.
My current weekend rule is simple: play with my daughter until she's completely exhausted. It was raining, so indoor playground it was. But my wife was extra energetic today and basically took over, leaving me with nothing to do.
So I wandered into the bookstore. And that's where I found a book that hit me right between the eyes.
"Why Study English in the AI Era?"
The Question I Couldn't Answer
The reason this title jumped out at me is because I'd been stuck on this exact question for months.
I've loved English for a long time. Back in my early twenties, I did a one-month homestay in Sydney — my first time abroad. I'd never even been on a domestic flight before that. Just threw myself into it.
After that I kept studying on and off, eventually landed at a foreign car manufacturer at 35, and spent five years working with people from all over the world.
But then I left that company. Now I'm surrounded by Japanese speakers all day. Zero English in my daily life. My skills are slowly rusting and I can feel it.
And every time I think about picking it back up, the same question kills my motivation: "What's the point? AI translates everything perfectly now."
Brutal loop to be stuck in.
The Book Wasn't What I Expected (But It Gave Me Something Better)
I bought it immediately. Read the whole thing in one sitting while waiting at the tire shop for my winter tires to get swapped.
Honest take? Not quite the book I was hoping for. The author is a linguistics professor, so the angle was very linguistics-focused. The core argument was basically: "Different languages give you different perspectives on the world, so learning a foreign language expands how you see things."
Valid point. But with "AI Era" in the title, I was expecting something more forward-looking. More tech-adjacent. A little disappointing on that front.
BUT. There was something in there that grabbed me — not from the thesis itself, but from the feeling it triggered.
What I Actually Realized
Reading that book brought back a rush of memories from Sydney. Landing in a foreign country for the first time with zero experience. Struggling through conversations. Being shocked by how differently people communicate, think, and connect.
Everything was electric. In my twenties, the whole world looked like it was glowing.
That was almost 20 years ago. But it still feels like the foundation of who I am. Being buried in a Japanese-only work environment and the daily grind had dulled that feeling. I'd almost forgotten it was there.
This book reminded me: that sensation of discovering another culture, another way of seeing the world — I want to feel that again before I die.
That's the answer. That's why I'm still learning English.
Not because it's practical. Not because AI can't do it. Because the experience of genuinely understanding another language and culture changes you in a way that no translation tool ever will.
AI can convert words. It can't convert the feeling of finally getting a joke in another language, or the moment a cultural reference clicks and you see the world from a completely different angle.
The Real Reason Has Nothing to Do With Utility
So yeah. The book's actual thesis wasn't quite what I was after. But it accidentally gave me exactly what I needed — a reminder of why this matters to me on a deeply personal level.
English stays on the curriculum. For life.
Catch you later ✌️
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