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Launch HN: Univerbal (YC W23) – Language learning with a conversational AI tutor

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Univerbal (YC W23) – Language learning with a conversational AI tutor

#131

Post by sebnun »

tkgally wrote: post #18

It looks like you’ve made a good start. I tried it now with Japanese, and it worked pretty well. I wish you the best of success. A few comments: For Japanese, you might want to offer a choice for the amount of kanji to use in the written transcriptions that appear on the screen. Your current transcripts use the standard orthography, including kanji; some learners might like that, while others, especially beginners, w…

Nice to see you here. I have been following your YouTube channel for a while, yes I think I discovered your channel via your videos about learning languages with ChatGPT (I'm building a language learning app as well so IIRC I was researching about it).

Re: Launch HN: Univerbal (YC W23) – Language learning with a conversational AI tutor

#133

Post by wolverine876 »

Kiro wrote: post #103
wolverine876 wrote: post #90

This looks very interesting and I wish you guys the best. One suggestion - a nitpick usually that I wouldn't write, but because it's a language product, you want to give the right impression of your language skills: In English, uni- , the prefix, means 'one'. For example, unidirectional doesn't mean 'all directions', it means 'one direction'. [0] The name of the app means something like 'one language' or 'one word'.…

I strongly disagree. Univerbal is a much better name than Omniverbal/Ambiverbal.

Help us out - why?

Re: Launch HN: Univerbal (YC W23) – Language learning with a conversational AI tutor

#134

Post by tkgally »

sebnun wrote: post #131
tkgally wrote: post #18

It looks like you’ve made a good start. I tried it now with Japanese, and it worked pretty well. I wish you the best of success. A few comments: For Japanese, you might want to offer a choice for the amount of kanji to use in the written transcriptions that appear on the screen. Your current transcripts use the standard orthography, including kanji; some learners might like that, while others, especially beginners, w…

Nice to see you here. I have been following your YouTube channel for a while, yes I think I discovered your channel via your videos about learning languages with ChatGPT (I'm building a language learning app as well so IIRC I was researching about it).

Thanks! If you’d like to discuss ideas for your app, feel free to get in touch. I’m always happy to chat about such topics.

Re: Launch HN: Univerbal (YC W23) – Language learning with a conversational AI tutor

#135

Post by xill47 »

I have encountered a problem on Android app, even if I have starred words in conversation they are still not there in "Progress -> Vocabulary". Also, would be great if I could easily import cards from there to Anki decks, but I could do it myself if there was API access to it.

Re: Launch HN: Univerbal (YC W23) – Language learning with a conversational AI tutor

#136

Post by apatil »

Quazel_S wrote: post #126
apatil wrote: post #87

I've used chatgpt itself as a language tutor a bit but this is nicer. I like the inline suggestions that don't break the flow of conversation. Portuguese speech to text is flaky. This may be partly attributable to my pronunciation, and chatgpt has the same issue. I'd love to have a hands free mode that's suitable for use while doing chores or driving.

You can actually set the chat settings to automatic recording and even decide after how many seconds of not saying anything, the message should be automatically sent. Just check out the chat settings on the top right ;)

The auto submit slider doesn't work for me (on Android) but I can imagine what it would be like. I don't think the Portuguese speech to text is good enough for the app to be usable hands free even if the slider did work. For example, it just transcribed

"Eu quero ir a assistir ao filme." (which is almost correct)

as

"Eu quero ia AA chistian ao filme."

These errors have to be corrected by typing.

Re: Launch HN: Univerbal (YC W23) – Language learning with a conversational AI tutor

#137

Post by apatil »

apatil wrote: post #87

I've used chatgpt itself as a language tutor a bit but this is nicer. I like the inline suggestions that don't break the flow of conversation. Portuguese speech to text is flaky. This may be partly attributable to my pronunciation, and chatgpt has the same issue. I'd love to have a hands free mode that's suitable for use while doing chores or driving.

I have found myself legit using this instead of duolingo for the past couple of days, in spite of the speech to text issues. It feels like a better way to learn. The inline suggestions, in particular, seem like they will help me quickly move through bad habits and mistakes in order of severity.

The tutor review at the end of the lesson doesn't feel as useful currently; its content isn't particularly actionable. Maybe if it gave me a couple of exercises or something?

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