Ask HN: Conversational AI to Learn a Language

> 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

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.

It helps if you pay natives for their suffering. Something like Italku does just that.

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.

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.