It's been working way better than I expected. Good job!
Show HN: I built an AI language teacher to get you speaking
11–20 of 112 posts
Re: Show HN: I built an AI language teacher to get you speaking
#12Very cool can’t wait to try it. I’m curious about offering Bosnian which basically no language apps do. Was it just easy to offer or is there more of a connection. My wife is Bosnian and I have learned some over the years.
Unfortunately speech recognition is very poor for Bosnian, and that seems to be the case here as well. I am not sure how usable it is for the described use case is, but given that it didn't understand 3/3 of my sentences at all, I wouldn't hold my breath yet.
Re: Show HN: I built an AI language teacher to get you speaking
#13Seems a very good idea.
As I'm really not fluent in the language I'm learning, it would be super useful to me to be able to click on any word in the dialog to see it's translation, no need for grammar or complete sentences, only the words I don't know!
Re: Show HN: I built an AI language teacher to get you speaking
#14Great job! I just played with it and really liked it. In terms of "getting it to take off", I'd suggest partnering with some language schools first. For example, there is an Alliance Francaise in my city and most decent-sized cities in the US. The difficulty, of course, is that a lot of language schools may have valid fears about AI replacing them, but I think it would be a nice tool to add as an adjunct to human-tau…
Yes, the first of getting replaced makes sense. I think it's more about complementarity. There's not even speaking time in language classes and it's been like this for decades. (Language labs were supposed to make up for it, but I suspect they'll become AI-based… well, like most things )
Re: Show HN: I built an AI language teacher to get you speaking
#15Looking at this I've been trying to use GPT like this for a while which I'm assuming is all this is. That said, the experience leaves a lot to be desired.
1. As someone else mentioned, I am coming into this having no idea about the language. Some way to identify words would be nice. Or some actual teaching. 2. I don't like that I'm forced to talk to it. I wanted to be able to just chat with it.
Re: Show HN: I built an AI language teacher to get you speaking
#16This is fantastic. Love it.
Re: Show HN: I built an AI language teacher to get you speaking
#17Add Danish!
Re: Show HN: I built an AI language teacher to get you speaking
#18Greetings! I really like your idea. I have been building a similar open source/non-commercial tool. I am essentially trying to build a solution to get me ready for a standardized Korean language exam. The format and UX of Giglish are extremely good, but I think there are a few places where you need to fine tune your prompts, at least for Korean language learning. I also wish there was a drill mode that is less open ended (I’ve seen an alternative tool that has a feature called “phrase pump”). I have a hard time keeping a conversation with an AI but love the idea that it can feed me quick prompts over and over again. This is ideal for someone who is studying a language and does not have easy access to native speakers. If you ever want to hop on a call to talk about ideas or get feedback I would be happy to provide it. My contact details are pretty easy to find.
Re: Show HN: I built an AI language teacher to get you speaking
#19Great job! I just played with it and really liked it. In terms of "getting it to take off", I'd suggest partnering with some language schools first. For example, there is an Alliance Francaise in my city and most decent-sized cities in the US. The difficulty, of course, is that a lot of language schools may have valid fears about AI replacing them, but I think it would be a nice tool to add as an adjunct to human-tau…
Yes, the first of getting replaced makes sense. I think it's more about complementarity. There's not even speaking time in language classes and it's been like this for decades. (Language labs were supposed to make up for it, but I suspect they'll become AI-based… well, like most things )
> There's not even speaking time in language classes and it's been like this for decades.
That's not even the only issue. I took some strictly conversational classes for a while, but the problem is that it's one teacher with 5-10 students, so most of the speaking and conversing is done with people who suck as bad as you do at the language! The thing I really liked about your site (and just some of my own practicing that I've done with ChatGPT) is that I really get to converse with solely a dedicated "fluent" speaker.
Again, thanks and great job!
Re: Show HN: I built an AI language teacher to get you speaking
#20This is really cool. I like it. I think a few simple things would be: -- a toggle to ensure that what you get back is automatically translated to english, and the translation is easier to read. In fact, making sure you can always see translations right away would help, even for suggestions. -- Much simpler conversations to begin with, my Spanish is basically non-existent from when I took it in school, and the teacher…
Getting English translation is a good idea, but it should be "hold down 5 seconds" to reveal -- Allowing it to be shown instantly might actually slow language learning. Users should be allowed to struggle a few seconds first (struggle === learning) before translating.
Alternatively, it might be nice to be able to translate only individual words. If I understood 60% , inferred 35%, and was clueless about 5% of a foreign text, I think I'd end up learning more by using the smallest amount of translation possible and only translating the word I was stuck on.
It would also be nice to see support for more widely spoken languages. Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and Hindi could be your killer apps -- If supporting non-latin text is a bottleneck, you could launch these languages in beta with some features disabled!
Overall, great product OP! This is definitely good enough to start charging for. Spending 5 minutes a day speaking Spanish is a very appealing idea for me. As silly as it sounds, I'd try selling door to door (in person) for the first few users. I think that could be much more effective for early stages. You should also consider adding a intermediate tier for people in lower income countries.
I will keep your site bookmarked -- I tested it for Spanish, but the language I really want to learn Arabic. If you can add Arabic language support, I will be the first person to sign up!