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Show HN: Learn any language with an AI tutor at your own pace

fluffytutor.com

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Re: Show HN: Learn any language with an AI tutor at your own pace

#31

Post by TheRealPomax »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #5

I have a feeling that soon we will stop learning new languages to communicate with others because real-time AI translation will be so good, and we'll learn languages in a vacuum for intellectual amusement only, barely getting past the A2 level due to the lack of true human stimulation in the activity. This tool is certainly a step in that direction, and it strikes me as a great loss to humanity because we are losing…

Because forcing people to speak the ruling class's lingua franca has done so much good for the 500+ languages we already forced out of existence? If anything, finally having proper real-time translation would allow folks to keep speaking their native tongue instead of being forced to abandon it.

Languages with global speaker bases will be fine, but languages with tiny speaker groups would highly benefit from having an alternative to "stop speaking your own language and learn ours, or your government won't talk to you".

Re: Show HN: Learn any language with an AI tutor at your own pace

#32

Post by jimbokun »

kjellsbells wrote: post #12
vouaobrasil wrote: post #5

I have a feeling that soon we will stop learning new languages to communicate with others because real-time AI translation will be so good, and we'll learn languages in a vacuum for intellectual amusement only, barely getting past the A2 level due to the lack of true human stimulation in the activity. This tool is certainly a step in that direction, and it strikes me as a great loss to humanity because we are losing…

Depends on the language and the reason to learn it. Right now its pretty discouraging. I pick up, say, enough Italian to get through a 2 week holiday, but all the people I interact with are under 40 and keen to practice their (excellent) English. English is so much the Common Tongue that I even hear the French and German visitors using it. But: if I can get thru that, and start to engage with (say) Italy at a deeper…

There needs to be a name for this phenomenon experienced by native English speakers abroad, who actually want to learn a foreign language.

I knew my Japanese was getting decent, many years ago, when my Japanese coworkers started replying to my Japanese in Japanese, instead of replying to my broken Japanese with broken English.

Re: Show HN: Learn any language with an AI tutor at your own pace

#33

Post by lioeters »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #31
vouaobrasil wrote: post #5

I have a feeling that soon we will stop learning new languages to communicate with others because real-time AI translation will be so good, and we'll learn languages in a vacuum for intellectual amusement only, barely getting past the A2 level due to the lack of true human stimulation in the activity. This tool is certainly a step in that direction, and it strikes me as a great loss to humanity because we are losing…

Because forcing people to speak the ruling class's lingua franca has done so much good for the 500+ languages we already forced out of existence? If anything, finally having proper real-time translation would allow folks to keep speaking their native tongue instead of being forced to abandon it. Languages with global speaker bases will be fine, but languages with tiny speaker groups would highly benefit from having a…

Great point. I can imagine this could become a real thing: training AI/LLMs in obscure languages in order to preserve them.

Re: Show HN: Learn any language with an AI tutor at your own pace

#36

Post by quesera »

Swizec wrote: post #17
kjellsbells wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the language and the reason to learn it. Right now its pretty discouraging. I pick up, say, enough Italian to get through a 2 week holiday, but all the people I interact with are under 40 and keen to practice their (excellent) English. English is so much the Common Tongue that I even hear the French and German visitors using it. But: if I can get thru that, and start to engage with (say) Italy at a deeper…

> But: if I can get thru that, and start to engage with (say) Italy at a deeper level I was at a native+ level of English in high school according to an IELTS test I took for fun. During college my English improved further. When I moved to USA … ho boy the difference between fluent English and culturally fluent idiomatic English is surprisingly vast. Much hilarity, frustration, and subtle misunderstandings ensued. It…

> Californians, for example, don’t use the plural contraction. You have to say “there’s many options” instead of “there are many options”. Otherwise you sound like a weirdo.

Don't extrapolate too far from a small sample. I don't think anyone would recognize you as a non-Californian just for saying "there are".

Now, if you refer to highways US-101 or I-5 as anything other than "The 101" or "The 5", then you're clearly not from here!

Wikipedia does not back me up on this, however. Apparently the "The" names are SoCal-indicative. This has not been my experience here in NorCal.

FWIW, I learned the meaning of "based" once, but I found the explanation dissatisfying and promptly forgot it. :)

Re: Show HN: Learn any language with an AI tutor at your own pace

#37

Post by Asraelite »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #25
Swizec wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But: if I can get thru that, and start to engage with (say) Italy at a deeper level I was at a native+ level of English in high school according to an IELTS test I took for fun. During college my English improved further. When I moved to USA … ho boy the difference between fluent English and culturally fluent idiomatic English is surprisingly vast. Much hilarity, frustration, and subtle misunderstandings ensued. It…

> Edit: One super interesting aspect is that to speak fluent native English you have to do it wrong. Californians, for example, don’t use the plural contraction. You have to say “there’s many options” instead of “there are many options”. Otherwise you sound like a weirdo. You’re viewing it the wrong way around. L1 speakers almost never use formalized grammar rules (especially not in everyday speech). Instead, the rul…

> never use formalized grammar rules

> the rules are formulated post-hoc

Not sure what you mean by this. This post-hoc formulation is how you define formal grammar rules, at least in a modern linguistic approach.

If the grammar rules you're referring to are nonsense prescriptivist things like "don't end a sentence with a preposition" that you get taught in school, then yeah you can completely disregard them.

It is possible to codify the actual grammar of a language as it is spoken, and reading these rules is very helpful for learning a language, but this kind of accurate description of grammar is something you're more likely to find in academic papers than school textbooks.

Re: Show HN: Learn any language with an AI tutor at your own pace

#38

Post by Asraelite »

chankstein38 wrote: post #11

Seems basically like a gpt prompt: "When I speak, respond in the language that I speak in but provide me translations in (language)" I was definitely hoping for more depth here.

And the pricing seems way too high considering that.
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