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Unless you're in a country where the vast majority don't speak English, it probably isn't worth it.
And that's leaving aside that we're right on the cusp of ubiquitous, seamless real-time translation for pretty much any language, so the marginal benefit of learning another better than a decent ML model can explain it to you is going to be slim if existant at all. The technology exists, as do proof of concepts, there simply isn't a convenient packaging for it. You still get most of the way with Google translate on a phone. But something like GPT-4 can explain the nuances that a more basic, albeit adequate, translating software can miss, so you won't even lose out on the cultural nuances.
There is no plausible real-time translation solution that (in real life; deepfakes are obviously possible on Zoom) makes your mouth make the words as they are spoken. So digital translation is always going to be lower status than learning the language yourself. That said, I agree that it’s becoming less and less necessary.
I agree, I can't imagine any situation where somebody would actually socialise or do any significant work using machine translation. Google Translate (and whatever comes next) can be helpful for translating emails or websites, and for media we already have dubs and subtitles. But most people who learn a language do so to use their new language in the same way they use their mother tongue, to talk to people.
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