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

You can't make up a couple of conversation topics and expect the LLMs to do the rest by just switching languages. People approach the same topics completely different in different languages. The app looks like someone picked a couple of topics and the rest is "just" ChatGPT advanced voice mode.

And the worst thing is that the LLMs in TTS do not sound native and cannot teach you pronounciation and learning to listen and understand (which is the whole point in having spoken conversation).

And the other way around, the STT will not notice pronounciation mistakes made by the student - so the app cannot tell you: oh, its pronounced like this.

I’m currently learning French as a beginner and I’ve learned other languages in the past. I’ve trued Duolingo as well as italki and frantasic as well as just ChatGPT. I am very familiar with Anki and I think it’s critical to make your own flashcards by choosing images and sounds. I don’t want auto cards.

My experience with Issen:

* it’s frustrating when the conversation partner doesn’t remember what it just said - it means I can’t get a chance to ask que c’est que ça veut dire.

* it’s frustrating (just like with ChatGPT) that the conversation partner tends to interrupt and jump in while I’m thinking. I think many learners speak slowly and spend extra time thinking. ChatGPT allows you to hold the glowing circle and it won’t interrupt while you do.

I’d love to see the chat bubbles have more in depth features like:

* much clearer indicator of hover or click words for translation, and more features like example sentences or click to pronounce

* an option to ask for an explanation of some or all the text

* for my own text I’d love to see feedback with more UI native elements about how accurately I pronounced each word and any grammatical mistakes I made. The text summary is a great start

I found myself ignoring the features of the chat bubbles and only in writing this feedback did I notice them! They could maybe use more contrast and clear UI emphasis. Duolingo does a good job of making their UI very clear with this kind of feedback.

I think it’s important to build features that augment the app to work around LLM limitations. My guess is a lot of the settings change the prompt and that’s great but I think it leaves too much room for hallucinations to nosedive the experience.

I’d also love to see some way to have a hold to talk or something similar.

I’m very conscious at this point about the cost of these lessons and I have a hard time finding the price. Frantastic is absurdly expensive and it made me switch to italki where human conversation is literally cheaper. Without differentiating more from ChatGPT I would have a hard time justifying an additional subscription to my wife!

Edit: I found the pricing and it’s a tough sell! ChatGPT is cheaper.

I think you can both differentiate further from ChatGPT and keep cost down. I’d recommend to try to get more value out of each API call, so learners are more aligned with the cost per interaction- like make it so I’m enticed to spend a little longer reviewing the chat bubbles. My suggestions are mostly about how I want more engagement with each utterance anyway. Right now it’s very tempting to just keep making more and more utterances and IMHO that drives up costs while being frustrating for me.

I’d be happy to discuss! I wish you success.