Learning English is more than just learning a language, and is worthwhile; not learning it, in an increasingly interconnected world, can be a disadvantage.

To regard a foreign language, English in particular, merely as a tool — or worse, as a dispensable one — is to miss the larger point. Learning a language is not simply about acquiring a practical skill. It opens a window onto other societies, ways of thinking and larger pools of knowledge, while expanding our own thinking.

China’s remarkable achievements over the 40-plus years of reform and opening-up did not happen over night. They were accompanied by a nationwide enthusiasm for learning foreign languages, which helped generations of Chinese people engage with a rapidly changing world. To reduce the value of foreign-language learning to a simple question of whether it is immediately “useful” is to misunderstand what education itself is about.

How much of what we learn from childhood to adulthood proves directly “useful” in our daily lives? If immediate utility were the only measure of value, literacy and basic arithmetic might be enough for most people. And if that logic is taken to its extreme, one might even argue that with AI increasingly capable of providing information and services on demand, there is little left for people to learn at all.

But that is precisely the wrong conclusion.

Education has never been solely about acquiring skills for immediate use. It is also about cultivating curiosity, judgment and the capacity to understand a world larger than ourselves. Learning something whose value cannot be measured in immediate practical returns may be one of the most useful things we can do.

So, for your own sake — and for the sake of a brighter future — keep learning. Strengthen your resolve to acquire knowledge, broaden your horizons and understand the world beyond your immediate surroundings, especially at a time when there are voices seeking to make you doubt the value of learning useful knowledge and skills themselves.