> Language models show that language is predictive, not rule based. Training language models by making them predict missing words in a text is a trick to optim

> Language models show that language is predictive, not rule based. Training language models by making them predict missing words in a text is a trick to optimize their ability to extract information from text. That doesn't mean that making humans do the exact same task is the optimal way to learn a language. And it definitely doesn't mean there are no rules. Millenia of linguistic research have succeeded in identifying a lot of rules in every language. You don't have to learn them explicitly, but it speeds things up a bit. If you think there are no shortcuts to learning, you're either blind to the shortcuts you used, or you missed out on a lot. Like dictionaries. They just tell you what a word means in a language you can understand! That saves a lot of time compared to having to figure out everything from context. The Wiktionary entry for the particle に https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%AB#Particle https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%AB#Particle lists eight different uses and has a note on the different nuance of ヘ. Do you think this entry is completely useless? If someone looks up に, what information should they get?