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Show HN: LearnLingo – Converse with an AI-powered language tutor

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Re: Show HN: LearnLingo – Converse with an AI-powered language tutor

#71

Post by ksoped »

ben_w wrote: post #52
iraldir wrote: post #40

I made a similar tool for myself (to lean Japanese) with a more "phoenix wright" game like interface, that I plan on open sourcing. (A slightly older version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip4BxbAc13g ) I thought of going the way you went with a product, but my takes are - B2C is incredibly hard, especially with a subscription. People are just going to compare the price of your product to netflix and say it's not w…

> Even if it's a success, the likes of DuoLingo can copy that in a month and have so much more marketing and money to win the market Only theoretically; in practice, Duolingo have a specific brand — IMO aimed at helping younger kids with schoolwork — they don't want to risk damaging, so if you target your language course at people who chafe at the style of art, animation, voice, and/or content of Duolingo[0], you sti…

>aimed at helping younger kids with schoolwork

IMO duolingo is aimed at peopple(adults) who say they want to learn a language but aren't ready to take it seriously

Re: Show HN: LearnLingo – Converse with an AI-powered language tutor

#72

Post by houseatrielah »

mnd999 wrote: post #11
TekMol wrote: post #6

Hey! Before I trust your site with my data - who are you? Your HN account seems to have been created only to present this one project. Do you have a website, or are you on Twitter or anything? Who is the legal entitiy referred to in "© 2023 LearnLingo. All rights reserved."?

Privacy policy would be a good start.

Why? Worst case scenario is a data-broker knows you are trying to learn Spanish. Then what? You get served an ad for Duolingo which your ad-blocker probably intercepts?

Re: Show HN: LearnLingo – Converse with an AI-powered language tutor

#73

Post by applesan »

iraldir wrote: post #40

I made a similar tool for myself (to lean Japanese) with a more "phoenix wright" game like interface, that I plan on open sourcing. (A slightly older version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip4BxbAc13g ) I thought of going the way you went with a product, but my takes are - B2C is incredibly hard, especially with a subscription. People are just going to compare the price of your product to netflix and say it's not w…

I watched the video, but I don't think this is practical. You can't realistically learn Japanese with gpt 3.5 as it makes ton of mistakes, gpt 4 is better, but still wouldn't use it. Even in this video it doesn't explain meaning of word 動産, but instead only breaks it down to kanji. Also you made mistake in your answer, you don't say おほしい and gpt didn't even correct it.

Re: Show HN: LearnLingo – Converse with an AI-powered language tutor

#74

Post by ksoped »

This would be a great service if it was a more robust translation tool. From what other comments are saying, this is the chatGPT API with some prompting for translation but I could see this working and providing much more value with a model specifically trained like what Iceland is doing to help preserve its language. https://openai.com/customer-stories/government-of-iceland

Re: Show HN: LearnLingo – Converse with an AI-powered language tutor

#75

Post by Secretmapper »

ksoped wrote: post #71
ben_w wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if it's a success, the likes of DuoLingo can copy that in a month and have so much more marketing and money to win the market Only theoretically; in practice, Duolingo have a specific brand — IMO aimed at helping younger kids with schoolwork — they don't want to risk damaging, so if you target your language course at people who chafe at the style of art, animation, voice, and/or content of Duolingo[0], you sti…

>aimed at helping younger kids with schoolwork IMO duolingo is aimed at peopple(adults) who say they want to learn a language but aren't ready to take it seriously

IIRC their demographics are heavily skewed towards younger people.

In US/Japan etc. the largest age-group of learners is 13-22

- Found the source: https://blog.duolingo.com/dear-duolingo-how-does-language-le...

Re: Show HN: LearnLingo – Converse with an AI-powered language tutor

#76

Post by applesan »

I don't understand, how is that different from just using chatgpt?

Generally I don't think it is good idea to use LLMs for learning languages, especially if it wasn't trained primarily on that language. Also if you are beginner, how can you know if what it says is even correct?

From my experience, it makes a lot of mistakes (at least in Japanese and Polish).

Re: Show HN: LearnLingo – Converse with an AI-powered language tutor

#77

Post by iraldir »

applesan wrote: post #73
iraldir wrote: post #40

I made a similar tool for myself (to lean Japanese) with a more "phoenix wright" game like interface, that I plan on open sourcing. (A slightly older version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip4BxbAc13g ) I thought of going the way you went with a product, but my takes are - B2C is incredibly hard, especially with a subscription. People are just going to compare the price of your product to netflix and say it's not w…

I watched the video, but I don't think this is practical. You can't realistically learn Japanese with gpt 3.5 as it makes ton of mistakes, gpt 4 is better, but still wouldn't use it. Even in this video it doesn't explain meaning of word 動産, but instead only breaks it down to kanji. Also you made mistake in your answer, you don't say おほしい and gpt didn't even correct it.

I've rewrote the "grammar prompt" for the helper tool on the right since the video and it does behave much better now. Although, as you say, you're limited by what 3.5 can do.

But for GPT not correcting me, it's "a feature not a bug"©. Specifically, he's supposed to act like a Japanese person and if he can understand what I'm saying, even if the conjugation is wrong etc. it should work with it. However if I speak in complete giberish or english etc., then you have a "game over" where you fail the scenario.

It's supposed to be a "japan simulator" so to speak, and in real life, people make effort to understand you, you can use gestures also, even write stuff on paper if necessary.

However I'm currently adding a "validate your answer" button where he should tell you if it's grammatically correct etc. and allow you to take it back.

Ultimately, it's not going to be perfect, especially not with 3.5, but at my level of Japanese I think it's more about forcing me to be creative when I speak, in scenarios that matter to me. Not just following a script from Genki, but needing to explain stuff specific to my situation etc.

Re: Show HN: LearnLingo – Converse with an AI-powered language tutor

#80

Post by ben_w »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #69
ben_w wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sole trader, not Ltd (or whatever the equivalent term is in Australia)? I did that ages ago, before everyone was storing user data; these days I'd definitely suggest incorporating and getting public liability insurance, just in case a GDPR accident happens. Best of luck, I hope you're more successful with this than I was with my adventure. :)

This is how you kill entrepreneurship. Tell everyone to incorporate and get liability insurance before they even get started... due to fears around a law from a foreign government that has no jurisdiction where the founder lives . Obviously, if this gets traction, it will be worth incorporating, getting insurance, accounting and legal services, etc, but if you do all of that before putting anything on the market, you…

Incorporation, specifically limited liability, is specifically there to make it easier and less risky to be an entrepreneur — no matter how hard a company gets sued, the owner can't (normally) be bankrupted.

Likewise insurance.

Also, quick Google immediately found that Australia has an equivalent to GDPR in the form of the Privacy Act (1988).

And GDPR has, by design, extra-territorial effect: https://gdpr.eu/companies-outside-of-europe/

(Extra-territorial rules may seem unreasonable, but they are the flip-side to the internet not recognising national borders: everywhere gets to say you're operating in their jurisdiction).

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