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am rusty chinese speaker. randomly assigned to converse on Furniture & Locations. --- Quazel: 告诉我吧!你是如何安排你的家具的？ Me (in halting, broken chinese): 窗户旁边有一个沙发，中间

by swyx 4y ago

am rusty chinese speaker. randomly assigned to converse on Furniture & Locations. --- Quazel: 告诉我吧!你是如何安排你的家具的？ Me (in halting, broken chinese): 窗户旁边有一个沙发，中间是电视和桌子。我的工作就是在这里. Quazel: 所以你的沙发是面向窗户的？那真的很好。我敢打赌，这样你会得到很多自然光。沙发后面是什么呢？ translated Quazel: How do you arrange your furniture? Me: There is a couch next to the window, with a TV and table in the middle. This is where I work. Quazel: So you have your couch facing the window? That's really nice. I bet you get a lot of natural light that way. And what is behind the couch? --- holy. shit. its like a very very patient language teacher who doesnt judge you, who understands objects and context.

panda_2134 4y ago
Native Chinese speaker here. While Quazel has shown ability in understanding the context, its Chinese is not as authentic as that of a real teacher. Grammatically correct, but sounds weird. (for example, the phrase "I bet" is rarely used in Chinese) Maybe the weirdness is an innate characteristic of machine translation, so I'm not being too harsh here. But IMO it cannot take the place of a human teacher (at least now).
- swyx 4y ago
  yea i think there's some unnecessary english intermediary layer here. starting a sentence with 所以 for "So" was a telltale sign to me as well. i suspect it goes chinese prompt -> english prompt -> english response -> chinese response rather than the more direct chinese prompt -> chinese response which would eliminate those translated englishisms. but i gotta say as someone who doesnt like people waiting for me to come up with words, this beats a human teacher for the basic activation of neural pathways for vocab
- Hadjimina 4y ago
  Yeah some languages work better than others...keep in mind this is the earliest usable version. Will definelty keep that in mind
treis 4y ago
It's interesting that you got a deeper conversation. Mine was (in spanish): Me: How are you? Q: I am well Me: What do you do? Q: I am an engineer Me: What kind of engineer? Q: I am a civil engineer That's when I got the pay/subscription wall.
- LimitedInfo 4y ago
  it's free right now, you just need an account

by swyx 4y ago

panda_2134 4y ago

Native Chinese speaker here. While Quazel has shown ability in understanding the context, its Chinese is not as authentic as that of a real teacher. Grammatically correct, but sounds weird. (for example, the phrase "I bet" is rarely used in Chinese) Maybe the weirdness is an innate characteristic of machine translation, so I'm not being too harsh here. But IMO it cannot take the place of a human teacher (at least now).

swyx 4y ago
yea i think there's some unnecessary english intermediary layer here. starting a sentence with 所以 for "So" was a telltale sign to me as well. i suspect it goes chinese prompt -> english prompt -> english response -> chinese response rather than the more direct chinese prompt -> chinese response which would eliminate those translated englishisms. but i gotta say as someone who doesnt like people waiting for me to come up with words, this beats a human teacher for the basic activation of neural pathways for vocab
Hadjimina 4y ago
Yeah some languages work better than others...keep in mind this is the earliest usable version. Will definelty keep that in mind

treis 4y ago

It's interesting that you got a deeper conversation. Mine was (in spanish): Me: How are you? Q: I am well Me: What do you do? Q: I am an engineer Me: What kind of engineer? Q: I am a civil engineer That's when I got the pay/subscription wall.

LimitedInfo 4y ago
it's free right now, you just need an account