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Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI

talk.quazel.com

51–60 of 354 posts

Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI

#51

Given that a lot of conversational chat bots end up devolving into... lets charitably call it 'repugnant ideas'... I am not sure that learning to talk from them is wise. Interesting concept, but I'm going to pass for now. I don't want to be talking to a friend and find that I accidently espoused the ideas of the third reich.

According to the author, they censor various topics

Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI

#54

Very cool idea, but doesn't it have a level adjustment? For example, I'm learning Chinese but my level is quite basic at the moment, it would be cool if the bot could adapt its vocabulary.

您好!我也正在学中文,但是我也很初学者。What do you do for speaking practice? I live in China, so I get plenty of listening practice, but not too much on speaking (it's hard to keep people's attention with broken sentences :P). I made this an (https://letsyiya.com) to help with that. It's not as good as I'd like it to be, but I've found it helpful. I'd be glad to hear your setup :)

Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI

#57
This is interesting, but it's a tech solution that decreases person-to-person contact which is bad because isolation breeds hatred and anxiety. Just go talk to someone, there are so many people who want to do language exchanges. The problem with language learning is usually consistency and engagement/interest, you don't need tech. This app is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, and that creates more problems.

However, it is impressive and probably has application elsewhere. I think this should be pivoted to law, customer service some other target market.

Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI

#58

In my opinion the issue with most language programs is that they focus too early on speaking when listening should be the focus early on. Really speaking shouldn't even come into the picture until exposure of about a year and something like 15,000 hours of good comprehensible input.

That seems like an extremely inefficient way of learning a language, and does not match at all my experience nor the experience of the people I know fluent in multiple languages, and it seems to go straight against a common advice which is to speak and practice early and often, as 'producing' language is much more efficient to learn it than 'consuming' it.

What makes you think 15000 hours of listening would improve anything, more than spending those 15000 hours on any other activity ? And do you have any specifics results that could give credit to your theory ?

For reference, it is estimated that for hard languages, ~2200 hours of practice is required : https://linguapath.com/how-many-hours-learn-language/

Re: Show HN: Get conversational practice in over 20 languages by talking to an AI

#59
post #51

Given that a lot of conversational chat bots end up devolving into... lets charitably call it 'repugnant ideas'... I am not sure that learning to talk from them is wise. Interesting concept, but I'm going to pass for now. I don't want to be talking to a friend and find that I accidently espoused the ideas of the third reich.

According to the author, they censor various topics

Given that's it Azure, that's probably done for them whether they want to or not.
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