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Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor

#32

Post by drakonka »

mariano54 wrote: post #29
drakonka wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar feeling with Swedish just now. It isn't really much different than conversing with ChatGPT in advanced voice mode - it's up to me to drive the conversation and it all feels quite arbitrary (and I find myself instinctively falling back on topics I know how to talk about, which quite defeats the purpose). I was hoping for a more structured learning plan that strategically expands my comfort zone and ski…

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah we need to improve the beginner experience, it's more tailored towards intermediate/advanced students at the moment.

Do you mean that the experience is meant to have more structure if you pick the intermediate or advanced level? (fwiw I did pick intermediate for my Swedish level in the app).

My thinking is - I can have unstructured conversations with Advanced Voice Mode or in real life here in Sweden. What I'd really appreciate is a guided learning experience taking me up from intermediate/slightly above intermediate to fluent in the most efficient possible way (as opposed to just having us 'ramble' about random topics of my own choosing).

Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor

#35

Post by mariano54 »

b0a04gl wrote: post #27

how're you handling latency on turn overlaps : buffered stream with early intent cutoff or full duplex with partial decoding?

We transcribe after 400ms of silence in 200ms chunks. 3 voice chunks (VAD) automatically interrupts, unless it's a back channel like "yeah" or "right" or something like that.

Whisper can transcribe in <100ms. We then wait for the turn detection model, LLM, and tts to trigger a streamed response back to eh client.

Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor

#36

Post by Ocha »

mariano54 wrote: post #29
drakonka wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar feeling with Swedish just now. It isn't really much different than conversing with ChatGPT in advanced voice mode - it's up to me to drive the conversation and it all feels quite arbitrary (and I find myself instinctively falling back on topics I know how to talk about, which quite defeats the purpose). I was hoping for a more structured learning plan that strategically expands my comfort zone and ski…

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah we need to improve the beginner experience, it's more tailored towards intermediate/advanced students at the moment.

So basically if you are starting a new language from zero, then this is not for you?

Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor

#37

Post by lawrencechen »

Congrats on the launch!

I tried the Japanese track. I'm a total beginner and the first lesson wasn't helpful at all. The AI asked about maybe mixing up JapaneseEnglish, but it didn't actually follow through. It either spoke fully in Japanese or fully in English. Maybe this is a standard practice for language lessons? I remember going to the first day of French class in a community college, and the teacher only spoke French, which was extremely overwhelming. Perhaps it's the standard way of teaching? Even if it is, I'm not sure if it works when compressed down to the shorter times I see myself opening the app.

Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor

#38

Post by candiddevmike »

mariano54 wrote: post #29
drakonka wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar feeling with Swedish just now. It isn't really much different than conversing with ChatGPT in advanced voice mode - it's up to me to drive the conversation and it all feels quite arbitrary (and I find myself instinctively falling back on topics I know how to talk about, which quite defeats the purpose). I was hoping for a more structured learning plan that strategically expands my comfort zone and ski…

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah we need to improve the beginner experience, it's more tailored towards intermediate/advanced students at the moment.

Why wouldn't intermediate/advanced students just talk directly to ChatGPT? From what I see, I thought your value prop was for the beginners.

Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor

#40

Post by tempodox »

itake wrote: post #26

I'm trying to learn vietnamese, but the lessons are really really rough and borderline bad advice. --- AI: Anh mệt is good if bạn are a man speaking about yourself. You can also say, “Em mệt” if you’re a woman. this isn't correct. If you are of "older brother" age and are male, you say Anh. Em is for if you are "younger person" (does not matter the gender). Women tend to prefer being called "em" (even if they are old…

This sounds very much like the kinds of mistakes that LLMs typically make. It's a pity, I would love a good language learning platform.
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