10 ms·

Ask HN: Conversational AI to Learn a Language

85 points by edweis 1y ago

Hi all, I want to learn Dutch and by experience I know I learn better when talking with native speakers. From your experience, is there a good AI I can converse with in Dutch? It would be even better if I could see the transcription in Dutch. Gliglish (https://gliglish.com) looks good but is more for speaking than for learning. I'd like to be able to set a situation (negotiating a job offer, calling a supplier ...).

hiAndrewQuinn 1y ago
I'm learning Finnish. For the most part, Gemini and ChatGPT do a much better job at generating passable if sightly Internet-inflected Finnish than I'm likely to anyway within the next 5 years, so I just talk with those. I would imagine Dutch to be in the same camp, unless a native Dutch speaker reviews some of your conversations and tells you otherwise. My native Finnish wife has given me the marginal all-clear with the vanilla models.
- jeffwass 1y ago
  What are some of the prompts you use?
billylo 1y ago
I added a Practice Mode in my speech-to-speech translator app 3PO. It allows you to practise talking with chatGPT and gets assessment score on your accuracy. Topic is preset. (chatGPT plays the role of a travel guide to help you find places to go in Holland (for Dutch)) https://3po.evergreen-labs.org https://3po.evergreen-labs.org
- huhtenberg 1y ago
  Dope name. Beware of Disney though.
achempion 1y ago
I’m making fluent.im, it has situations with goals for each conversation, and we’re about to ship lessons based on your favorite podcast content.
muzani 1y ago
I've been setting up Vapi.ai for this. Written and spoken are different skills. It comes down cheaper than an actual teacher, and it has the patience to correct you.
dankwizard 1y ago
If you have a ChatGPT subscription, set up your own GPT with prompting around your level, how you want it to respond, how to correct mistakes etc. Then you can use it for anything - Generate tests based on words you know, roleplay like ordering in a restaurant, write stories and have it correct grammar. This is what I have to supplement my Chinese and it is incredibly helpful. Look at the comments already - Everyone is building a simple wrapper to do this very thing but charge you $20 per month for the privelege. These are souless, most likely vibe coded garbage. Avoid.
- drakonka 1y ago
  I want to practice speaking and last time I checked Advanced Voice Mode was not available in custom GPTs - is that still the case? Advanced Voice made a really big difference to conversational practice for me, but I do feel like I need to wrap it in a custom knowledge base/instructions to make it as useful as it could be for my language practice.
- SchemaLoad 1y ago
  You don't even need a subscription, just start the conversation with something like "I'm trying to learn x, I'm at a beginner skill level. Can you have a conversation with me and correct my mistakes." and it works superbly. The Duolingo CEO copped a lot of criticism for it, but I think he is right that LLMs play a huge role in the future of education, though he probably ragebaited everyone by overselling it and calling teachers babysitters. But ChatGPT as it is now is a better language learning tool than their hand crafted app is. Rather than clicking on word blocks, you can actually have a free form conversation and get feedback like "Yes your sentence is understandable but sounds unnatural, you could try ___"
  - huhtenberg 1y ago
    Duolingo CEO just went on record to say that all future language teaching will be AI, but physical schools and teachers will continue to exist "to provide childcare". That is a very polarizing way to phrase it.
TaskNinja 1y ago
Im not sure in Dutch... But recommends starting with chatgpt until find a good product.
edmondmc900 1y ago
I didn't try to learn Dutch. But I have used AI for learning Spanish. From my experience, they can guide and teach you the "School Spanish" perfectly. However, they cannot teach you slangs and conversational Spanish.
jc4p 1y ago
Hi! I have a WIP of this over at https://talktrainer.app/ https://talktrainer.app/ -- I just added Dutch to it. It uses OpenAI's realtime API to simulate either a tutoring session (the speaker will revert to English to help you) or a first date or business meeting (the speaker will always speak the target language) You can see the AI's transcriptions but not your own, limitation of the current OpenAI API but definitely something I can fix. The prompts are like this: https://gist.github.com/jc4p/d8b9d121425ec191d62602d8720eeed1 https://gist.github.com/jc4p/d8b9d121425ec191d62602d8720eeed... and the rest of it is a Nextjs app wrapped around the WebRTC connection. I'm not fully in love with the app so I'd love any feedback or hearing if it works well for you -- It doesn't have a lot of features yet (including saving context) and if you bump into the time limit just open it up in incognito to keep going.
- ciaovietnam 1y ago
  I just tried it and it works perfectly. The color scheme and font size could be touched up to look better. Just out of curiosity, is $10/month enough to cover the (unlimited) API cost? Do you estimate how many percentage of your users will use more than $10 API fee each month?
  - jc4p 1y ago
    Thanks so much for trying it out! The realtime API is actually very cheap especially for short connections, for each user who uses it 30 minutes a day every day in a month it costs me ~$5 and I assume the average user is going to use it way less than that (although i have 0 users right now haha)
- valleyer 1y ago
  This is great! Well done. I've used the realtime API for something similar (also related to practicing speaking, though not for foreign languages). I just wanted to comment that the realtime API will definitely give you the user's transcriptions -- they come back as an `server.conversation.item.input_audio_transcription.completed` event. I use it in my app for exactly that purpose.
redsh 1y ago
I'm trying to solve the problem of unlimited conversation practice for various languages with "CallAnnie", an iOS/android app with various kind of AI friends, powered by real time voice and avatars. The interface is specifically made for advanced learners that want to simulate a conversation as close as possible to a real one (in terms of latency and without pushing any button). Learning to respond fast in a new language is important, so we're trying to keep a natural pace. We support audio or video-calling the characters (with subtitle translations), guided conversations and we recently added mini games to learn vocabulary. You can see a quick intro and demo video here: https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1013961 https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1013961 We don't have a Dutch speaking character in the default character list, but you can follow this link https://app.callannie.ai/a/mhLnHflAyf1Ygb0D0wm6 https://app.callannie.ai/a/mhLnHflAyf1Ygb0D0wm6 after installing the app to use a custom character speaking Dutch (or you can create a custom character). If you'd like to try it, check out: callannie.ai . I would love to get your feedback (here or francesco a t callannie.ai) and suggestions - we're trying to solve this speaking practice use case.
kelseyfrog 1y ago
I use ChatGPT's conversation mode to supplement my language learning (A2/B1-ish French and 1hr/wk 1-on-1 tutor). I tend to use it in the car, just asking about random facts or ideas or playing 20-questions. The format forces me to just use my voice and listening skills - in other words, I'm forced to not touch my phone. It's also rather challenging because I'm doing two things at once and the hope is that I won't actually spend much brain power overthinking my responses - something I tend to do if I was talking to myself instead which typically turns into more of a rehearsal format.
ajabhish 1y ago
Our Voice AI Agent makes it extremely simple and engaging to learn new language - create card dynamically, asks multiple-choice-questions, uses diagrams, does role play ... Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iSIVnLR-nM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iSIVnLR-nM Website: https://app.toughtongueai.com/ https://app.toughtongueai.com/
- huhtenberg 1y ago
  Why is video 1.5x accelerated?
nosioptar 1y ago
I tried Spanish (I don't know Dutch at all) with Claude via duck.ai. I immediately had to correct it. (My Spanish is limited to a half a semester 20 something years ago and season 1 of Community.) I don't think I'd be confident that I'd learn accurately from an AI.
chrchr 1y ago
Any of those "AI companion" apps can do this very well, or so I have read!
brunorsini 1y ago
Try https://www.issen.com https://www.issen.com (YC company).
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ycombinatornews 1y ago
I’m building https://instantlyfluent.com https://instantlyfluent.com, a small project to help people and myself practice languages before travel. It works through voice or text chats with AI. I tried Gliglish but didn’t like how it was structured. So I started turning my own “learn a language before a trip” routine into something easier to use. Dutch is not supported yet, and there are still some rough edges. But the idea is simple: help people remember words by using them. You say or type something, and get a reply you can hear or read. In conversations on IF, there is no fixed path. You can start with a topic, then ask to switch to something else. It’s meant to be low-pressure and flexible. Still figuring things out. Happy to share more or hear from others working on similar tools.
throwaway290 1y ago
> I want to learn Dutch and by experience I know I learn better when talking with native speakers. If you are learning Dutch to talk to native speakers then why don't you talk to native speakers. You clearly plan to find actual people to talk to at some point right? So go ahead and do it
- floitsch 1y ago
  You will improve your language skills this way, but if your skill level isn't high enough it's going to be exhausting to the native speaker as well. I have been living in Denmark for 15 years now, and it's still easier to do conversations in English. When I speak Danish it requires more mental capacity from the other side. I am speaking Danish from time to time, but it's only to get better at it. The English proficiency in Denmark (and probably the Netherlands) is so high that you need to be really good at the native tongue before it is easier than English in conversations.
  - throwaway290 1y ago
    This is my point. especially in a country where everybody speaks English anyway. you will never be better at Dutch than English so by that logic. it will always (or at least for many years) be more difficult to talk to you in Dutch. so, ask the hard question: Are you learning it to actually talk to other people? If yes, just do it. to many people it is endearing if you are struggling with a language. And if they don't like it they probably just don't like talking to you in general so learned or not doesn't matter. I think many people are scared of talking and use language learning as an excuse for fear. You can start talking to real people or you can keep learning and never talk to real people and then what's the point.
- huhtenberg 1y ago
  It helps if you pay natives for their suffering. Something like Italku does just that.
  - throwaway290 1y ago
    do you normally pay people to talk to them? if someone doesn't like talking to you in general then it doesn't matter if you're learning or not. if you are scared to talk to people, it doesn't matter if you learned the language or not. fix the root cause.
herewulf 1y ago
I've been using Univerbal happily with Italian. Dutch is one of its 20 languages. Worth noting that it's a paid app but seems to have a lot of polish. I found out about it on HN so I'm sure you can look up discussions to get more opinions on it (though it's quite frequently updated). https://www.univerbal.app https://www.univerbal.app
- upcoming-sesame 1y ago
  I'm really impressed by this app. it's not just a chat. GPT wrapper. I wonder if on device models are good enough for these tasks. this could cut the cost significantly instead of using openai API, for example
- Boltgolt 1y ago
  The fact that the Dutch translation of the app is awful does not inspire confidence. Really basic stuff like translating "No" to "Geen" (none) in a yes/no question
aphronio 1y ago
I am working on a telegram bot for this https://t.me/FriendFluentBot https://t.me/FriendFluentBot - It doesn't support dutch yet but i can add it. I am a pakistani living in germany and married into a turkish family.The main purpose for making this is to help myself and family to communicate with each other. I still haven't landed on a magic approach to learn language in 7 days. But this bot is for having human like conversations about anything. It'll remember your past history as well as what you have already talked about to keep the natural flow. Audio messages are still a work in progress. Will be added by the end of the day. Any feedback would be appreciated as it is still in very early stages.
daviddragan1 1y ago
@jeffwass why would anyone want to learn Romanian ..no but seriously buckle up because it's the most irregular language ever with weird expressions and when you ask why something is gramatically how it is you'll hear "idk it just sounds better" so get ready for that
ThomasBb 1y ago
NotebookLM now supports Dutch - So you could load up some content of interest and 'join the studio' to talk with the hosts - I imagine that might be useful and fun.
entwife 1y ago
I have used TalkPal for Catalan. I found it slightly superior to ChatGPT, especially, I find the feedback about performance, daily/weekly summary emails, the suggested responses, and the gamified experience to be motivating. The conversations use voice and text input, and audio and text output. I believe they also have a Dutch version. It is not quite what you are looking for, but I also liked Lingoclip for both Catalan and Spanish. I had exceptional difficulty training my ear to distinguish speech sounds, so recognizing words in song lyrics was helpful.
enceladus06 1y ago
I am learning French & have tried ChatGPT with advanced voice mode. Are there other tools that are better than default GPT?
demarq 1y ago
Gemini does a perfect job of this. "I am currently learning Dutch. I would like to play out a scenario where I am a customer who has just arrived at a restaurant, and you are the waiter. Throughout this scenario, let's talk in Dutch. Only speak in English when offering suggestions or corrections. My goal is to sound more natural. "
nodezero 1y ago
I'm trying to configure step by step a custom GPT and a learning project and use the voice mode to practice small phrases and it helps me with grammar. This is the initial query I defined: You are my expert mentor supporting my process to learn French You are assigned to design an execute a development program to increase the level of your students You are tasked to investigate and apply the methods proving huge results in short periods of time The typical book from school with structured situations that tries to divide the topics into food, going to the toilet or asking something by phone is not preferred unless there's significant evidence that such approach is working Focus on highlighting and creating methods to learn the most used words and grammatical structures Think with a 80 / 20 approach. What can I do the 20% of the time leading to 80% of the results About your student: Already speaking French but pronunciation can be significantly improve The student is native Spanish speaker and also speaks English (advanced) Grammar and knowledge of grammatical structure does also needs improvements so he/she can speak French at a professional level Not scientifically proved but it looks like your student acquires better the language by learning a few words, listening, listening, listening and then repeating on real life conversations / communication. The problem with this approach is that for languages like French where the writing differs the pronunciation, the improvement of the student is limited, it does not learn how to properly write the language Particularly for French, the student won a big amount of vocabulary by constantly listening a podcast called "Small talk in slow French by Nagise" Your mission: - Make an investigation about what could be an ideal way to learn an present your report - Include platforms or material that could be used to support the study process - Write a prompt to create a custom GPT that supports the learning process following the criteria defined on your investigation. The student will use the voice mode, images and text on the GPT as part of its training process and the GPT should be there to assist when needed and to track the progress and areas in need of improvement Take your time and provide first class and high level results, think of you as the most regarded expert on the sector. Executing this task will profoundly help a young professional Is the description of the task clear?
sinu_thomas 1y ago
[dead]
trod1234 1y ago
When vetting how useful answers are, I and most reasonably intelligent people always pay most attention to the answers that are negative because you typically learn something that helps you better able to approach the problem even if it doesn't solve the problem which you are intending to solve. Looking over this post, there's a problem here. Where are the posts that disagree? That are negative but provide constructive criticism, the very thing that provides value. I see 62 replies here, and this isn't a new question, and there are many caveats which easily come to my mind when learning languages, and yet no ones saying a thing. It begs some serious questions about the environment you are asking in. OP, I would suggest that before wasting your time listening to yes-people, you need some not-so-nice answers for perspective if you really want to solve that problem in an expedient way. That should necessarily include can AI solve that problem for you really? What are the risks of learning language improperly in a professional environment where reputation is important? What are the risks of improperly conveying meaning you didn't intend?, and so forth; you get the gist of the line of questions you should naturally come up with when seeking the truth of things. I'm reminded of all the Japanese anime fans that pick up phrases without understanding the meaning, which is what you are learning to convey when you learn a langauge: like men using watashi (instead of boku), using improper honorifics (-kun, -sama, diajo, aniki), and other aspects that while cute in an entertainment show reflect very poorly on the person if conveyed in reality.

85 points by edweis 1y ago

hiAndrewQuinn 1y ago

I'm learning Finnish. For the most part, Gemini and ChatGPT do a much better job at generating passable if sightly Internet-inflected Finnish than I'm likely to anyway within the next 5 years, so I just talk with those. I would imagine Dutch to be in the same camp, unless a native Dutch speaker reviews some of your conversations and tells you otherwise. My native Finnish wife has given me the marginal all-clear with the vanilla models.

jeffwass 1y ago
What are some of the prompts you use?

billylo 1y ago

I added a Practice Mode in my speech-to-speech translator app 3PO. It allows you to practise talking with chatGPT and gets assessment score on your accuracy. Topic is preset. (chatGPT plays the role of a travel guide to help you find places to go in Holland (for Dutch)) https://3po.evergreen-labs.org https://3po.evergreen-labs.org

huhtenberg 1y ago
Dope name. Beware of Disney though.

achempion 1y ago

I’m making fluent.im, it has situations with goals for each conversation, and we’re about to ship lessons based on your favorite podcast content.

muzani 1y ago

I've been setting up Vapi.ai for this. Written and spoken are different skills. It comes down cheaper than an actual teacher, and it has the patience to correct you.

dankwizard 1y ago

If you have a ChatGPT subscription, set up your own GPT with prompting around your level, how you want it to respond, how to correct mistakes etc. Then you can use it for anything - Generate tests based on words you know, roleplay like ordering in a restaurant, write stories and have it correct grammar. This is what I have to supplement my Chinese and it is incredibly helpful. Look at the comments already - Everyone is building a simple wrapper to do this very thing but charge you $20 per month for the privelege. These are souless, most likely vibe coded garbage. Avoid.

drakonka 1y ago
I want to practice speaking and last time I checked Advanced Voice Mode was not available in custom GPTs - is that still the case? Advanced Voice made a really big difference to conversational practice for me, but I do feel like I need to wrap it in a custom knowledge base/instructions to make it as useful as it could be for my language practice.
SchemaLoad 1y ago
You don't even need a subscription, just start the conversation with something like "I'm trying to learn x, I'm at a beginner skill level. Can you have a conversation with me and correct my mistakes." and it works superbly. The Duolingo CEO copped a lot of criticism for it, but I think he is right that LLMs play a huge role in the future of education, though he probably ragebaited everyone by overselling it and calling teachers babysitters. But ChatGPT as it is now is a better language learning tool than their hand crafted app is. Rather than clicking on word blocks, you can actually have a free form conversation and get feedback like "Yes your sentence is understandable but sounds unnatural, you could try ___"
- huhtenberg 1y ago
  Duolingo CEO just went on record to say that all future language teaching will be AI, but physical schools and teachers will continue to exist "to provide childcare". That is a very polarizing way to phrase it.

TaskNinja 1y ago

Im not sure in Dutch... But recommends starting with chatgpt until find a good product.

edmondmc900 1y ago

I didn't try to learn Dutch. But I have used AI for learning Spanish. From my experience, they can guide and teach you the "School Spanish" perfectly. However, they cannot teach you slangs and conversational Spanish.

jc4p 1y ago

Hi! I have a WIP of this over at https://talktrainer.app/ https://talktrainer.app/ -- I just added Dutch to it. It uses OpenAI's realtime API to simulate either a tutoring session (the speaker will revert to English to help you) or a first date or business meeting (the speaker will always speak the target language) You can see the AI's transcriptions but not your own, limitation of the current OpenAI API but definitely something I can fix. The prompts are like this: https://gist.github.com/jc4p/d8b9d121425ec191d62602d8720eeed1 https://gist.github.com/jc4p/d8b9d121425ec191d62602d8720eeed... and the rest of it is a Nextjs app wrapped around the WebRTC connection. I'm not fully in love with the app so I'd love any feedback or hearing if it works well for you -- It doesn't have a lot of features yet (including saving context) and if you bump into the time limit just open it up in incognito to keep going.

ciaovietnam 1y ago
I just tried it and it works perfectly. The color scheme and font size could be touched up to look better. Just out of curiosity, is $10/month enough to cover the (unlimited) API cost? Do you estimate how many percentage of your users will use more than $10 API fee each month?
- jc4p 1y ago
  Thanks so much for trying it out! The realtime API is actually very cheap especially for short connections, for each user who uses it 30 minutes a day every day in a month it costs me ~$5 and I assume the average user is going to use it way less than that (although i have 0 users right now haha)
valleyer 1y ago
This is great! Well done. I've used the realtime API for something similar (also related to practicing speaking, though not for foreign languages). I just wanted to comment that the realtime API will definitely give you the user's transcriptions -- they come back as an `server.conversation.item.input_audio_transcription.completed` event. I use it in my app for exactly that purpose.

redsh 1y ago

I'm trying to solve the problem of unlimited conversation practice for various languages with "CallAnnie", an iOS/android app with various kind of AI friends, powered by real time voice and avatars. The interface is specifically made for advanced learners that want to simulate a conversation as close as possible to a real one (in terms of latency and without pushing any button). Learning to respond fast in a new language is important, so we're trying to keep a natural pace. We support audio or video-calling the characters (with subtitle translations), guided conversations and we recently added mini games to learn vocabulary. You can see a quick intro and demo video here: https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1013961 https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1013961 We don't have a Dutch speaking character in the default character list, but you can follow this link https://app.callannie.ai/a/mhLnHflAyf1Ygb0D0wm6 https://app.callannie.ai/a/mhLnHflAyf1Ygb0D0wm6 after installing the app to use a custom character speaking Dutch (or you can create a custom character). If you'd like to try it, check out: callannie.ai . I would love to get your feedback (here or francesco a t callannie.ai) and suggestions - we're trying to solve this speaking practice use case.

kelseyfrog 1y ago

I use ChatGPT's conversation mode to supplement my language learning (A2/B1-ish French and 1hr/wk 1-on-1 tutor). I tend to use it in the car, just asking about random facts or ideas or playing 20-questions. The format forces me to just use my voice and listening skills - in other words, I'm forced to not touch my phone. It's also rather challenging because I'm doing two things at once and the hope is that I won't actually spend much brain power overthinking my responses - something I tend to do if I was talking to myself instead which typically turns into more of a rehearsal format.

ajabhish 1y ago

Our Voice AI Agent makes it extremely simple and engaging to learn new language - create card dynamically, asks multiple-choice-questions, uses diagrams, does role play ... Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iSIVnLR-nM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iSIVnLR-nM Website: https://app.toughtongueai.com/ https://app.toughtongueai.com/

huhtenberg 1y ago
Why is video 1.5x accelerated?

nosioptar 1y ago

I tried Spanish (I don't know Dutch at all) with Claude via duck.ai. I immediately had to correct it. (My Spanish is limited to a half a semester 20 something years ago and season 1 of Community.) I don't think I'd be confident that I'd learn accurately from an AI.

chrchr 1y ago

Any of those "AI companion" apps can do this very well, or so I have read!

brunorsini 1y ago

Try https://www.issen.com https://www.issen.com (YC company).

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

ycombinatornews 1y ago

I’m building https://instantlyfluent.com https://instantlyfluent.com, a small project to help people and myself practice languages before travel. It works through voice or text chats with AI. I tried Gliglish but didn’t like how it was structured. So I started turning my own “learn a language before a trip” routine into something easier to use. Dutch is not supported yet, and there are still some rough edges. But the idea is simple: help people remember words by using them. You say or type something, and get a reply you can hear or read. In conversations on IF, there is no fixed path. You can start with a topic, then ask to switch to something else. It’s meant to be low-pressure and flexible. Still figuring things out. Happy to share more or hear from others working on similar tools.

throwaway290 1y ago

> I want to learn Dutch and by experience I know I learn better when talking with native speakers. If you are learning Dutch to talk to native speakers then why don't you talk to native speakers. You clearly plan to find actual people to talk to at some point right? So go ahead and do it

floitsch 1y ago
You will improve your language skills this way, but if your skill level isn't high enough it's going to be exhausting to the native speaker as well. I have been living in Denmark for 15 years now, and it's still easier to do conversations in English. When I speak Danish it requires more mental capacity from the other side. I am speaking Danish from time to time, but it's only to get better at it. The English proficiency in Denmark (and probably the Netherlands) is so high that you need to be really good at the native tongue before it is easier than English in conversations.
- throwaway290 1y ago
  This is my point. especially in a country where everybody speaks English anyway. you will never be better at Dutch than English so by that logic. it will always (or at least for many years) be more difficult to talk to you in Dutch. so, ask the hard question: Are you learning it to actually talk to other people? If yes, just do it. to many people it is endearing if you are struggling with a language. And if they don't like it they probably just don't like talking to you in general so learned or not doesn't matter. I think many people are scared of talking and use language learning as an excuse for fear. You can start talking to real people or you can keep learning and never talk to real people and then what's the point.
huhtenberg 1y ago
It helps if you pay natives for their suffering. Something like Italku does just that.
- throwaway290 1y ago
  do you normally pay people to talk to them? if someone doesn't like talking to you in general then it doesn't matter if you're learning or not. if you are scared to talk to people, it doesn't matter if you learned the language or not. fix the root cause.

herewulf 1y ago

I've been using Univerbal happily with Italian. Dutch is one of its 20 languages. Worth noting that it's a paid app but seems to have a lot of polish. I found out about it on HN so I'm sure you can look up discussions to get more opinions on it (though it's quite frequently updated). https://www.univerbal.app https://www.univerbal.app

upcoming-sesame 1y ago
I'm really impressed by this app. it's not just a chat. GPT wrapper. I wonder if on device models are good enough for these tasks. this could cut the cost significantly instead of using openai API, for example
Boltgolt 1y ago
The fact that the Dutch translation of the app is awful does not inspire confidence. Really basic stuff like translating "No" to "Geen" (none) in a yes/no question

aphronio 1y ago

I am working on a telegram bot for this https://t.me/FriendFluentBot https://t.me/FriendFluentBot - It doesn't support dutch yet but i can add it. I am a pakistani living in germany and married into a turkish family.The main purpose for making this is to help myself and family to communicate with each other. I still haven't landed on a magic approach to learn language in 7 days. But this bot is for having human like conversations about anything. It'll remember your past history as well as what you have already talked about to keep the natural flow. Audio messages are still a work in progress. Will be added by the end of the day. Any feedback would be appreciated as it is still in very early stages.

daviddragan1 1y ago

@jeffwass why would anyone want to learn Romanian ..no but seriously buckle up because it's the most irregular language ever with weird expressions and when you ask why something is gramatically how it is you'll hear "idk it just sounds better" so get ready for that

ThomasBb 1y ago

NotebookLM now supports Dutch - So you could load up some content of interest and 'join the studio' to talk with the hosts - I imagine that might be useful and fun.

entwife 1y ago

I have used TalkPal for Catalan. I found it slightly superior to ChatGPT, especially, I find the feedback about performance, daily/weekly summary emails, the suggested responses, and the gamified experience to be motivating. The conversations use voice and text input, and audio and text output. I believe they also have a Dutch version. It is not quite what you are looking for, but I also liked Lingoclip for both Catalan and Spanish. I had exceptional difficulty training my ear to distinguish speech sounds, so recognizing words in song lyrics was helpful.

enceladus06 1y ago

I am learning French & have tried ChatGPT with advanced voice mode. Are there other tools that are better than default GPT?

demarq 1y ago

Gemini does a perfect job of this. "I am currently learning Dutch. I would like to play out a scenario where I am a customer who has just arrived at a restaurant, and you are the waiter. Throughout this scenario, let's talk in Dutch. Only speak in English when offering suggestions or corrections. My goal is to sound more natural. "

nodezero 1y ago

I'm trying to configure step by step a custom GPT and a learning project and use the voice mode to practice small phrases and it helps me with grammar. This is the initial query I defined: You are my expert mentor supporting my process to learn French You are assigned to design an execute a development program to increase the level of your students You are tasked to investigate and apply the methods proving huge results in short periods of time The typical book from school with structured situations that tries to divide the topics into food, going to the toilet or asking something by phone is not preferred unless there's significant evidence that such approach is working Focus on highlighting and creating methods to learn the most used words and grammatical structures Think with a 80 / 20 approach. What can I do the 20% of the time leading to 80% of the results About your student: Already speaking French but pronunciation can be significantly improve The student is native Spanish speaker and also speaks English (advanced) Grammar and knowledge of grammatical structure does also needs improvements so he/she can speak French at a professional level Not scientifically proved but it looks like your student acquires better the language by learning a few words, listening, listening, listening and then repeating on real life conversations / communication. The problem with this approach is that for languages like French where the writing differs the pronunciation, the improvement of the student is limited, it does not learn how to properly write the language Particularly for French, the student won a big amount of vocabulary by constantly listening a podcast called "Small talk in slow French by Nagise" Your mission: - Make an investigation about what could be an ideal way to learn an present your report - Include platforms or material that could be used to support the study process - Write a prompt to create a custom GPT that supports the learning process following the criteria defined on your investigation. The student will use the voice mode, images and text on the GPT as part of its training process and the GPT should be there to assist when needed and to track the progress and areas in need of improvement Take your time and provide first class and high level results, think of you as the most regarded expert on the sector. Executing this task will profoundly help a young professional Is the description of the task clear?

sinu_thomas 1y ago

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trod1234 1y ago

When vetting how useful answers are, I and most reasonably intelligent people always pay most attention to the answers that are negative because you typically learn something that helps you better able to approach the problem even if it doesn't solve the problem which you are intending to solve. Looking over this post, there's a problem here. Where are the posts that disagree? That are negative but provide constructive criticism, the very thing that provides value. I see 62 replies here, and this isn't a new question, and there are many caveats which easily come to my mind when learning languages, and yet no ones saying a thing. It begs some serious questions about the environment you are asking in. OP, I would suggest that before wasting your time listening to yes-people, you need some not-so-nice answers for perspective if you really want to solve that problem in an expedient way. That should necessarily include can AI solve that problem for you really? What are the risks of learning language improperly in a professional environment where reputation is important? What are the risks of improperly conveying meaning you didn't intend?, and so forth; you get the gist of the line of questions you should naturally come up with when seeking the truth of things. I'm reminded of all the Japanese anime fans that pick up phrases without understanding the meaning, which is what you are learning to convey when you learn a langauge: like men using watashi (instead of boku), using improper honorifics (-kun, -sama, diajo, aniki), and other aspects that while cute in an entertainment show reflect very poorly on the person if conveyed in reality.