In such a situation, this kind of prayer — unless translated –is of no use to anyone else then present. For no one else then present, is able to understand the language in which I just prayed. Because those listeners had never previously learned that language — nor were those listeners then experiencing a miracle in their ears, enabling them suddenly to understand the language in which I just prayed.
Calvin on the word ‘tongue’ in I Cor. 14:14
Comments Calvin: “The Corinthians…went wrong” — by publically praying each in his own foreign tongue while in the congregation. “Just as they were in the habit of speaking in foreign languages, so they were also using them in [public] prayers…. The meaning of ‘praying in a tongue’ is clear from the preceding verses of the chapter, viz. to express a prayer in a foreign language….
