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EuroLLM: LLM made in Europe built to support all 24 official EU languages

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Re: EuroLLM: LLM made in Europe built to support all 24 official EU languages

#511

Post by deaux »

troupo wrote: post #346
pier25 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the country. Opening a company in Estonia is very cheap but in Spain the manager/CEO needs to be an "autónomo" (like a self-employed tax status). This costs thousands of Euros per year. Something like 2,400-30,000 Euros per year, every year, forever.

And that's probably one of the big obstacles in the EU: there's no common ground for these things. At least this will hopefully be addressed: https://www.reuters.com/business/eu-propose-uniform-rules-st...

So what? There's no common ground in the US either, and it's not an issue there.

Re: EuroLLM: LLM made in Europe built to support all 24 official EU languages

#512

Post by lou1306 »

tripzilch wrote: post #504
igravious wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irish is an official language of Ireland (there is signage and instructions in Irish up and down the Republic) , Frisian is not an official language of the Netherlands to the best of my knowledge Irish is certainly not a robust vigorous language but your 40,000-80,000 numbers downplay it I'd suggest. Here are some statistics from Deepseek Category Region Number of Speakers Source & Year Some Ability Republic of Irela…

> Frisian is not an official language of the Netherlands to the best of my knowledge Sorry, but it is.

This is like saying German is an official language of Italy. It is officially recognized in specific bilingual provinces, not nation-wide.

Re: EuroLLM: LLM made in Europe built to support all 24 official EU languages

#513

Post by richardw »

stingraycharles wrote: post #411
dzikimarian wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While grant process in EU isn't fun, I think Levels has bit of an ego issues. He mentioned that if he had issues like that on eg X, he would see Elon himself in the replies. While he is great at converting his influencer status to income in his micro-SaaS projects, I don't think running ad-fueled browser games on state-sponsored super computer should be really aim of these grant programs.

Problem with these grant proposal things is that it favors established businesses over small founders. Establishes businesses have much more resources to go through all the legal / red tape issues. I’ve seen this in practice with innovation subsidies: small startup has to spend a lot of time to go though all the hoops, taking up significant resources, to get modest compensation for actual innovative work. Larger busi…

I left a research org because it was basically a professional gatherer and spender of grants. People would make some proposal with a consortium, spend the money, write a paper or two, visit a conference in eg Japan to present it, rinse and repeat. Hated that. Nothing to do with real innovation.

Re: EuroLLM: LLM made in Europe built to support all 24 official EU languages

#514

Post by deaux »

berkes wrote: post #494
pier25 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you talk to most EU business owners, even in tech, the limiting factor isn't regulations. I have a tech startup in Estonia and I agree. To me the biggest limiting factor is lack of funding.

The root cause of that is the lack of a true Capital Market union. In the US, you can get VC across state borders and VC can invest in any US company regardless of their location. Not in the EU. Investing in an Estonian startup from, say, the Netherlands is near impossible. And even if managed, now that NL investor has to repeat the entire process for Poland, Spain, Malta and other countries. EU Made Simple explains…

> Investing in an Estonian startup from, say, the Netherlands is near impossible

If anything this would be due to Dutch regulations rather than Estonian ones. So that would be more of a problem for setting up VCs in the EU rather than attracting capital in general, as the same would apply to the rest of the world. Is it easier for a US or Singapore VC to invest in an Japanese startup vs an Estonian startup? As far as I know the answer is a "no", but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Re: EuroLLM: LLM made in Europe built to support all 24 official EU languages

#515

Post by Vinnl »

rzwitserloot wrote: post #414
Vinnl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tomorrow there are elections in the Netherlands, and two parties are proposing adding Frysian to that list: https://neerlandistiek.nl/2025/10/kies-voor-taal/ Best get to retraining those models.

Not sure what happened there but your link disproves your statement. Specifically, the link says two things: 1. That 2 parties want to add *limburgish* to the list, not frisian. That's the bottom-right part of The Netherlands, about as far removed from Friesland as you can get (which is the top part of the Netherlands). 2. That one party wants to add Frisian, but, that is a one-day fly party that will cease to exist…

Whoops yeah, misremembered - didn't reread as I posted the link. Was more of a fun off-the-cuff remark, so didn't spend too much energy on it. But yes, I meant Limburgish rather than Frisian.

Re: EuroLLM: LLM made in Europe built to support all 24 official EU languages

#516

Post by jcarrano »

tacker2000 wrote: post #390
moffkalast wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, VCs don't exist here. Plus the absurd starting costs, it's like what, 20k to set up a GmbH?

Not needed in the beginning. You can start an UG (mini GmbH) for 1 euro and then convert it into a proper GmbH later.

After waiting 3+ months for the Finanzamt to respond.

Re: EuroLLM: LLM made in Europe built to support all 24 official EU languages

#517

Post by deaux »

clickety_clack wrote: post #353
deaux wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where in Europe and where in the US? You probably started one in the easiest US state to do so. Did you try starting one in the easiest EU state? Otherwise we already can't take things very seriously. Secondly, what's easier besides VC funding? If it's VC funding, the disparity there has nothing to do with regulations - guess how much VC funding the non-EU rest of the world gets.

I’m actually bootstrapping, so the VC situation isn’t relevant to me. It’s a distant memory to me now, I’m building a company and so much has happened that the details of this decision have faded away. But, between the AI act and GDPR, there’s a set of potential traps laid out for you to step into, along with reams of paperwork. All that requires lawyers and compliance consultants to help you figure it out, and that’…

Awesome! I'm also bootstrapping. My company is set up in a place where the local version of the GPDR is significantly stricter and more onerous than the GDPR itself - yes, you heard it right, this exists! GDPR isn't even the toughest privacy laws in the world .

Yet startups here have managed to compete with US bigtech incomparably better than the EU. Shows that tough privacy laws have nothing to do with it.

> All that requires lawyers and compliance consultants to help you figure it out, and that’s way too much for a fledgling startup.

It also really just doesn't unless you're doing really shady stuff, in which case, good. The huge majority of startups don't need a lawyer to deal with GDPR.

Re: EuroLLM: LLM made in Europe built to support all 24 official EU languages

#518

Post by deaux »

coolewurst3000 wrote: post #249
deaux wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it is a complete misreading to point to protectionism as the reason for Chinese success, but having a big unified domestic market for consumers along with massive saving rates and capital controls probably does help. Capital controls are protectionist measures, but anyway, no. > Okay, what is the limiting factor? Let's look at which countries have a significant local software industry compared to population…

Spotify is Swedish. Uber is irrelevant in many places in the EU due to protectionism.

Great, you can cross Spotify off the list then or something.

> Uber is irrelevant in many places in the EU due to protectionism.

Thanks for another great example that proves the point :) Though I think there are markets where Uber Eats dominates even when Uber Taxi doesn't. Could be wrong.

Re: EuroLLM: LLM made in Europe built to support all 24 official EU languages

#519

Post by yvdriess »

OptionOfT wrote: post #303
yvdriess wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flemish is more of a political construct than linguistic, it's a grouping of belgian-dutch the coastal, brabant and limburg language groups with each having their own regional dialects.

It's more than political. In speaking Flemish is to Dutch as UK English is to US English. In writing however there is no difference in spelling, but there is a difference in word choice. Now, being from Belgium, even within that small part of the country where everybody is supposed to speak Dutch, I genuinely don't understand people from near the coast, which was about 150 miles from where I used to live.

Well yes, the dialects are very distinct linguistically, but what is often referred to as Flemish is the Dutch "tussentaal" aka "verkavelingsvlaams"[1]. That's not really a language per se, it's a regiolect of the official Dutch language, itself a Dutch variant of the Brabant dialects. The Flemish Dutch is usually used a lingua franca because the official Dutch otherwise sounds too formal (and native dialect speakers are foreign language speakers of Dutch). If I was to nominate a regional language for recognition it would more be the regional dialects like Brugs, Gents, Antwerps, Brussels Vloms, Hasselts, etc.

What I find interesting is that the differences in Flemish dialects make them much more distinct than what would normally call dialects. There are significant grammatical difference beyond the usual vocabulary differences. For instance, coastal Flemish conjugates yes and no[1], Limburgisch is a tonal language.

[1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tussentaal

Re: EuroLLM: LLM made in Europe built to support all 24 official EU languages

#520

Post by deaux »

panick21_ wrote: post #427
deaux wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it is a complete misreading to point to protectionism as the reason for Chinese success, but having a big unified domestic market for consumers along with massive saving rates and capital controls probably does help. Capital controls are protectionist measures, but anyway, no. > Okay, what is the limiting factor? Let's look at which countries have a significant local software industry compared to population…

Are the solar panels and EVs 'dumped' or are they just actually cheaper to produce? I would argue its the latter. Sure there is some state investment in the supply chain, so it is in Europe. Sure the are EV subsidies and green energy subsidies, but so does Europe have them. Fundamentally BYD cars are cheaper because China has localized the complete supply Chain or has very good raw materials import and local refineme…

I largely agree with you on this. I mentioned it because of the irony when compared to US big tech, where it's never mentioned while being their entire playbook - and as you're pointing out, in reality a much better example than Chinese EVs. The whole Silicon Valley VC model (hi YC!) where we talk about "burning VC cash" - this is literally a euphemism for dumping. Subsidizing goods to make them artificially cheap, far below cost, to gain market share, establish a near-monopoly and then raise prices. Dumping at scale. Amazon, Uber, now OpenAI. The only answer to that is protectionism.
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