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

talk.quazel.com

171–180 of 354 posts

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

#171
post #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.…

I agree with you. Although it is a useful app in isolation, it contributes to people being less dependent on others. Once you get to a sufficient level that you can talk, you should just find another person instead of interacting with AI.

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

#173
post #121
post #90

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.

From what I read (on /r/gamedesign, /r/proceduralgeneration and Gamasutra) it's about control. The AAA studies leave nothing to chance when it is about the game play. Once "AI" speech comes to a level where the NPC will only answer with pre-sanctioned content they might jump onto the band wagon ... but seeing that it is very much possible to generate porn with "censored" stable diffusion ... we won't see "free" AIs i…

If you slap an M rating on it why would that matter?

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

#174
I'm stunned by how well this works for Japanese, the only language I think I'm good enough at to judge the AI's responses.

The speech recognition is flawless as far as I can tell. The AI occasionally gets itself into a loop of repeating my question or itself, but I think this has been a problem with a lot of chatbots. The only glaring errors I've seen so far are these kinds of AI-specific issues, like forgetting context, getting geographical facts wrong, etc.

>こんにちは。今日はどちらへお出かけですか? (Hello. Where are you headed?)

京都に行きます. (I'm going to Kyoto)

>素晴らしい都市ですね。行ったことはありますか? (It's a great city. Have you been?)

いや初めてです。お勧めの場所はありますか?. (Nope, it's my first time. Any places you suggest?)

>京都は歴史のある美しい都市です。たくさんのお寺や神社を訪れることができます。(Kyoto is a beautiful city with history. You can visit plenty of temples and shrines.)

そうですね。清水寺とか聞いたことがある。行きたいんだ. (True. I've heard of like, Kiyomizudera, and I want to go.)

>清水寺は必見です!とても人気のあるお寺で、市内を一望できるんですよ(Kiyomizudera is a must-see! It's a very popular temple, and you can see the whole area at once)

Not only does it know about Kyoto, but it knows about a specific temple (picked it up via speech recognition too). Translations are rough and by me, not quazel.

This could be a real game changer if the other languages are this good.

Additionally, if you register an account then you get access to the "Scene builder" which lets you set up a situation to start the conversation in. I have found that you can redirect any conversation to pretty much anything, but I thought it was a cool idea that many people here averse to account-making might have missed.

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

#175
post #34

Here’s what I think would be a killer feature. Have it use AI to adapt the conversation level to the level of learner. Smaller words, repetition, slower. If you notice this is how adults talk to babies and children to help them learn the language.

There are many possible knobs on such a tool that could be wonderfully useful. I'd love to press a button that provides critical feedback: marking for errors or suggesting improvements for style (grammar, better word choice, useful idioms, etc). It'd also be great if my sentence was scored for 'natural-ness' -- how close was it to native speech? If this could be done regionally, that'd be better still (e.g. Spanish a…

We also see a lot of potential in giving the most precise feedback possible. In that way each individual learner can benefit the most. The development is currently on-going and we are looking forward to the next steps!

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

#176
post #78

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…

Yeah yeah, and the input hypothesis has it’s own critics about what exactly “comprehensible input” even is.

…but let’s face it: either extreme (only input, only output) is clearly stupid.

Predictive models require a feedback loop; if you don’t have any means of correcting the predictions of good output, you’ll never refine your model.

This is true of AI models, and it’s true of humans. It can’t not be true.

The point is that you can only learn meaningfully from annotated inputs, like tv, or like talking to people. The input just has to be at the right level.

...

Should people start with listening instead of talking to people? Probably not. Probably they should do both. Why not do both? It's crazy to suggest you should only one or the other.

Probably, the feedback loop in deep immersion of a language, where you have it around you all the time, in a country where that is the native language is the best possible way to encounter lots of examples at lots of different levels to learn from. Probably, you get better input from speaking, because it means people talk to you at a level similar to what you're already at.

Is it about actually speaking? No.

…but it’s patently ridiculous to suggest you could go to another country and just sit silent and listen for three months.

This is pretty interesting tech, and frankly, amazing that it works at well.

Is it perfect? No. Is it another useful tool? It certainly is.

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

#177
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I read (on /r/gamedesign, /r/proceduralgeneration and Gamasutra) it's about control. The AAA studies leave nothing to chance when it is about the game play. Once "AI" speech comes to a level where the NPC will only answer with pre-sanctioned content they might jump onto the band wagon ... but seeing that it is very much possible to generate porn with "censored" stable diffusion ... we won't see "free" AIs i…

If you slap an M rating on it why would that matter?

I believe no company in the world would want to put out a game where an NPC could be coaxed into presenting a sexy story featuring an infant Adolph Hitler and Jesus Christ.

It's just a headache that I wouldn't want, I guess.

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

#178
@Everyone: We are absoluteley stunned by your response. We have been working on this for a few months now and just posted it here on a whim not expecting much and are absoluteley blow away by your response. The bugs and crashes are somewhat to be expected but even those don't seem to be mission critical (or has some discovered one? => philipp@quazel.com) Your responses will help us imensley getting into an accelerator program. We might reach out to some of you for further feedback (feel free to ignore us if you don't feel like giving any).

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

#179
It would be cool to have a sort of smart home where you can activate an immersive language teaching mode where it will talk to you as you move around the house, naming things you interact with or prompting you for instructions, so that you just naturally before conversant without devoting time to dedicated lessons and practice.

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

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you slap an M rating on it why would that matter?

I believe no company in the world would want to put out a game where an NPC could be coaxed into presenting a sexy story featuring an infant Adolph Hitler and Jesus Christ. It's just a headache that I wouldn't want, I guess.

There are filters on the most common LLMs so you could obviously tune outputs to be within some range of possible outcomes.
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