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

Post by Hadjimina » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 3:50 PM UTC

codersfocus wrote: post #47

codersfocus wrote: post #46

Some feedback: When you start the intro, and it says "Hi, what language do you want to learn" the button should be labeled "Select..." not a default language. It was unclear I had to click it to select a different language. The languages in the app, and on your FAQ about which languages are available, aren't in sync.

One other thing is with alphabets. If I highlight over a word, and you could show me how to sound out the word in latin characters, that would be super helpful and no other language app I know of does that.

Post by Hadjimina » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 3:51 PM UTC

poulpy123 wrote: post #48

That's interesting. I just ran a session in english to french starting by writing /replying in english then adding french words in the sentence at the end to see how it reacts. - The errors in my english sentences, mainly word order and missing articles, are involuntary and the corrections are reasonably coherent with deepl and deepl writer (that also uses AI). - the french words were correctly identified as french w…

Post by NickC25 » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 3:58 PM UTC

Hadjimina wrote: post #36

NickC25 wrote: post #33

Neat app. How do you measure linguistic progress? >* The hard part intervenes when you try to replicate the progress tracking and tailoring of the curriculum.* Perhaps you guys just aren't thinking about it in the right way ;) Progress tracking and measurement is significantly easier from a conceptual standpoint than you might think. I'm not just bullshitting here - I've actually done it myself so I'm speaking from e…

Absolutely agree on the slang stuff. Progress tracking is hard to do at scale in completely open-ended conversations since there are so many degrees of freedom within one conversation. If you have any tips and tricks, these would be much appreciated :)

Post by losteric » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 5:04 PM UTC

grbsh wrote: post #52

grbsh wrote: post #49

Wow, I just tried it, and this is exactly what I’ve been looking for (something that actually makes you think conversationally, not just memorize vocabulary). Love the rebrand, by the way - I saw your posts about Quazle, and I never wanted to try it then for some reason. Can’t really explain it, but I guess that’s the power of branding right? One suggestion I would have is that it takes a while when I click on a word…

Also, I wouldn’t really worry about Duolingo - they cater to people who want to _feel_ like they are learning a language (for 2-5 mins a day), not people who actually want to make progress. Even if they release features like this, they won’t be competing with you. Duolingo is also the worst example of inappropriate gamification I’ve ever seen.

Post by yorwba » Tue, Jan 30, 2024, 5:12 PM UTC

NickC25 wrote: post #55

Hadjimina wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agree on the slang stuff. Progress tracking is hard to do at scale in completely open-ended conversations since there are so many degrees of freedom within one conversation. If you have any tips and tricks, these would be much appreciated :)

> Progress tracking is hard to do at scale in completely open-ended conversations since there are so many degrees of freedom within one conversation. You're overthinking it, my friend. The solution is much simpler than you realize. Email me.