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Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)

/^t/One of the main roles of a language is being a tool of communication for people travelling abroad. Of course, one may say that there are electronic interpreters available, which not only may translate a phrase or a sentence into another language but can even utter it. The problem is that while having a nice conversation with a foreigner the only thing you could do with the interpreter is asking questions. You would neither be able to understand the answers, nor to respond to the foreigner's questions, since you would not understand them. I do not think that such a chat would have any sense, since neither of the interlocutors would learn anything from the other person. That is why, if you go abroad to meet new people, and maybe to make new friendships, the knowledge of the language is essential.