Thanks for sharing! I tried using it for Thai language coming from English and found that the app understands me well! But I couldn’t understand it at all. It replied to my turns with very long messages (20+ syllables) in pure Thai and spoke with an unnatural rhythm which made it hard to pick out words or phrases. The foreign alphabet made it really difficult too. I tried changing some settings in the bottom left menu and it started speaking English to me too, but I found it unbearably slow. At one point it asked me if I wanted it to speak in pure Thai or a mix and then ignored my answer. Ultimately as a beginner I don’t think Issen will work for me very well as-is. Happy to check back in the future!
Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor
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Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor
#72It would probably be better to pick one or two languages, actually work with native speakers to make sure it's right. These "we cover every single language" tools get it like 75% right at best.
I disagree because of how AI is progressing and because there's tons of neglected language markets they can pick up. Obviously your approach can work too, perhaps better. But 95% of language learning tools don't support Thai (my target language) for example so I am an eager user for that reason alone. I think they'll be able to make a generalized curriculum and have the AI use it in all languages.
Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor
#73I appreciate your comment about gamification. I’ve kept a streak alive on other apps for no other reason than keeping a streak alive. Not learning a thing.
Yeah, this is the biggest gripe we hear about much of the existing language learning landscape. That they're effectively gaming apps masked as language learning apps.
You should still gamify it. Gamification is orthogonal to whether the tool actually works and positively correlated with whether the user actually uses it.
Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor
#74Loom embeddings work in HN posts? Is that new?
You must have the Loom chrome extension installed?
Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor
#75I haven't tried it out yet. I will. But I just want to say that I have wanted this to exist since I first used ChatGPT in 2022. Thank you for building it.
Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor
#76I've been waiting for someone to build this! Trying it out now
Ok, so feedback from me.
It asks me for my level; I'm half way through this audiobook (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Next-Steps-Spanish-Paul-Noble/dp/B0...), and have listened to the book before it a number of times, so I'd say I'm between beginner and intermediate. I think you could do better than a "what level are you, pick from 3 options" and throw you straight into a chat - ask some basic Spanish questions, and then try and figure out where the user is from there.
Next I chose Blanca from Barcelona, and she said an awful lot of words and I understood very little of them, so I think I'm not ready. Half the grammar lessons have both a Spanish and English explanation, and half don't.
I'll keep the feedback coming, but I'm on a train now and the questionable internet is not good enough for an actual conversation.
(not at all relevant but I work for Devyce, from the YC S22 batch!)
Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor
#77It would probably be better to pick one or two languages, actually work with native speakers to make sure it's right. These "we cover every single language" tools get it like 75% right at best.
I disagree because of how AI is progressing and because there's tons of neglected language markets they can pick up. Obviously your approach can work too, perhaps better. But 95% of language learning tools don't support Thai (my target language) for example so I am an eager user for that reason alone. I think they'll be able to make a generalized curriculum and have the AI use it in all languages.
My tool supports Thai, if you'd like to try it - https://nuenki.app . I added it at the request of a user, who seems to be happy with it.
It's a browser extension that finds English sentences in webpages, and translates the ones at your difficulty level into the language you're learning.
Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor
#78Honestly tried it out, I wanted to like it but in its current form I found myself frustrated enough to just end the 'call' and close the app. Been learning Spanish for quite some time now so wasn't put off by the 'it always talks in X language' thing people are talking about.
The thing that put me off was the speech recognition. I am not in a loud environment and I wasn't even talking and it was picking up responses and responding to it before I even opened my mouth. It blazed through the 'preferences' set up itself making up responses. Then when I did get to talk it just simply got my answers wrong. It would often interject too at random during my sentences.
Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor
#79I built a basic version of this for myself with a prompt in chat gpt in an afternoon. It's great that you've built this yourself, but where's the magic? If it's your prompt it can probably be extracted in a few minutes by those who know how to do so.
Re: Launch HN: Issen (YC F24) – Personal AI language tutor
#80This is the language app I've always wanted to exist. Will try it out - really hoping it can create custom lessons for specific scenarios that I need to study for.