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

talk.quazel.com

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

#81

Post by OJFord »

phpisatrash wrote: post #2

It really looks cool. But, why it doesn't have English? Or meybe if it does have, why isn't showed first? People who use language learning apps are focused in learning English most of the time. Still those who speak fluently are trying to improve their speaking and listening. And the first language which appeared for me was Brazilian Portuguese which is my mother language. [Edit] I was trying the Brazilian Portuguese…

To prevent DoS from a tonne of people using it just as AI conversation buddy when they know English perfectly well? Or said another way - I think there's lots of English AI conversation bots available, they're just not necessarily marketed as 'for learning English'.

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

#82

Post by foobarbecue »

Hadjimina wrote: post #24
Tade0 wrote: post #11

From the FAQ: > It might, however, also be that the conversation partner is feeling uncomfortable talking about certain things. Does this mean that users talk to actual people or am I not understanding this correctly?

So in the background we are checking if the stuff you are talking about is "risky". If that is detected, the conversation partner will just answer with something like "hmmm I don't feel comfortable talking about that" to keep it all in safe territory.

Do you really mean risky, or do you mean risqué?

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

#84

Post by yorwba »

Hadjimina wrote: post #36
andrepd wrote: post #9

With the current state of AI text generation, isn't this a recipe for disaster? By talking to a chatbot while learning a language you are liable to pick up whatever (vast) errors and mistakes the bot makes.

That's a good point. However, I think we have reached a point where AI text generation has come pretty far and will only continue to get better. Even if you pick up one or two mistakes the A.I. makes but are otherwise fluent, isn't that already an improvement? (Not a rhetorical question, genuinely interested)

There's also the issue of the AI picking up your mistakes and adding more of its own to match the input. When AI Dungeon came out, I recommended it to a friend as a way to practice English, but when she showed me a playthrough, it turned out that the AI had adapted to her writing style full of misspellings and grammar errors, so it probably didn't help at all. (I haven't been able to test your chatbot yet to see whether it suffers from the same problem.)

In general, practicing something allows you to do it with less and less effort until you barely have to think about it at all, but if you're practicing making mistakes , that just means you'll be making mistakes without thinking about it. To get better, you also need to notice your mistakes to change what you're doing accordingly.

So I think a bot that can guess what you were trying to say and can tell you what you should've said instead might be a bit more useful.

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

#86

Post by skohan »

bobajeff wrote: post #47

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's like 4 years if you spent 12 hours a day listening. Who has time for that?

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

#87

Post by lake_vincent »

bobajeff wrote: post #47

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.

Is this an evidence backed opinion or just anecdotal? I does not make sense to me, because I think attempting to speak in a language helps your brain form the new linguistic machinery that is also used in listening. I think language development is a feedback loop between speaking and listening.

My anecdote - learning Mandarin, which is tonal, is absurdly hard before you develop an ear and tongue for tones. I think trying to practice speaking in tones helps to then hear them, because you understand the sounds people make better. How they abbreviate/slant or modify tones based on surrounding tones - why? Because it feels better in the mouth. So until you experience that, you won't understand slant tones and such.

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

#88

Post by bongobingo1 »

knubie wrote: post #78
Majestic121 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

This is a common misconception. It probably does not match your and others' experience simply because it is conventional wisdom, and most people are taught to do this. But just because most people do something a certain way does not make it the most efficient way. There are a number of reasons why you would want to focus on input early on. For starters, with very little exposure to a language, you have very little id…

I think more importantly, most people find the _communication_ part exciting. Listening to 1000h of $LANG language podcasts is dramatically less enjoyable than the sense of cultural connection you get from conversation.

That's all muddied by AI/programmed learning (how much connection do you get from Duolingo?) now but I think the kernel is still true. People largely learn languages to talk, not to listen, it's no wonder things are structured that way and good luck trying to sell people otherwise.

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

#89

Post by detaro »

knubie wrote: post #78
Majestic121 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

This is a common misconception. It probably does not match your and others' experience simply because it is conventional wisdom, and most people are taught to do this. But just because most people do something a certain way does not make it the most efficient way. There are a number of reasons why you would want to focus on input early on. For starters, with very little exposure to a language, you have very little id…

Clearly the common way is more efficient than the original suggestion, given that people achieve useful fluency in a language much quicker than spending 40 hours a week for 7 years listening to it, and only then starting to consider speaking in it.

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

#90

Post by arriu »

First, I’d like to say I really love this product. Thanks for making this.

Second, where are the companies that are doing this type of thing for NPC dialogue in games.

Imagine playing Mass Effect or Skyrim but where you get to ask whatever and the NPC responds with something that fits within the space of possible answers based on the prompt that defined their existence.

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