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

talk.quazel.com

241–250 of 354 posts

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

#241
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.

Reminds me of eXistenz.

https://youtu.be/fPqpv__NiD0?t=189

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

#243
post #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 cont…

Can't say I relate unfortunately, I had two conversations in Japanese and both of them were kinda weird. In the first one it even misunderstood my name and repeated it back at me (incorrectly), it looked like some Google translate mistranslation.

In another one it asked me if it was okay to sit next to me and I replied with いや、遠慮しときます (which was marked as a "grammar mistake") and the AI just said ありがとうございます and "sat down" next to me nonetheless.

So far I'm not impressed, it looks like a chatbot piped through Google translate.

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

#244
It's a great idea, I tried it in German (fairly fluent) and it seemed pretty legit. But I'm guessing you're at the 90% completion point and that last 10% will require another 200% effort from you guys...

What do you use for speech synthesis? I have a little side project I'm investigating text-to-speech engines for (aiming for as much realism as possible, at least in English, plus the ability to possibly modify errant pronunciation somehow, and add pauses of varying length)

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

#245
post #99

Meanwhile there are millions of people in poor countries who would love to have a conversation with you in French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. over Skype.

The real upvote is to favorite a comment. Thanks, I am about to embark on learning Spanish. I’m going to talk to some people instead :)

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

#246

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…

Hahah I have a super silly response for this one: It's simply because we have not gotten around to translate the UI and everything into other languages besides english. That's why we simple assume people know english, since they need to be able to know at least some english to use it. But it's high on our to-do list.

My kids are struggling to learn English; would be very happy to use that with them. I can help in translating the UI in French if you'd like!

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

#247
Works great with Russian! Would suggest to set the bot to communicate with the "T–V distinction" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E2%80%93V_distinction

for example instead of Ты (you singular) it should say вы (you plural)

Duolingo explains:

    Russian makes a distinction between ты, singular "you", and вы, plural "you". The latter also doubles for "polite" you, with verbs also in plural. And don't forget that the "excuse" in "Excuse me" is a verb!

    Use ты with friends and your family members

    Use вы with adult strangers, your teachers and in other formal interactions (at the store, doctor's, airport etc.)

    People use вы with those who are much older.

    Nobody is "polite" toward kids.

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

#248
Hey, this is very cool. However, the service seems to be wilting under load -- I signed in with google, chose chinese, and am doing the first module. A simple 你好, 我叫 hasn't garnered a repsonse in ~15 minutes. The trial seems to work OK though.

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

#250

I tried using it in Portuguese and it's cool but it seems very off, just a huge number of things that don't sound even remotely natural or idiomatic. But when I click the translate button, the English translation is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. SO... I'm highly suspecting that, behind the scenes, the "real" conversation is happening in English, and it's translating in both directions. Which is always going to…

Using English as an intermediate language is just... a big no. I get it's a pragmatic decision, but English has way, way too many ways to lose information.

For this reason I prefer DeepL over Google Translate. The former has a much more curated corpus.

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