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Ask HN: Conversational AI to Learn a Language

85 points edweis | 1 comments | 17 May 25 07:02 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

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 ...).

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jc4p ◴[21 May 25 02:30 UTC] No.44047779[source]▶
Hi! I have a WIP of this over at 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/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.

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jeffwass ◴[21 May 25 06:25 UTC] No.44048809[source]▶
Did you just add Dutch as per the submitter’s request or was it part of your plan prior?

Curious because I’m trying to learn Romanian, and since it’s a less common language there are fewer resources available. So I wasn’t sure if you added Dutch with minimal amount of effort following the poster’s request.

That said, I gave your app a try with Spanish and it looks pretty good! But I didn’t see a Help page to clarify how I’m “supposed” to interact. Eg I tried saying in English “I don’t understand” (even though I know how to say that in Spanish) and it responded in Spanish which may be hard for absolute beginners. Although full immersion is much better way to learn.

I can try playing around more with it to give you some feedback.

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1. iLoveOncall ◴[21 May 25 08:16 UTC] No.44049374[source]▶
> Eg I tried saying in English “I don’t understand” (even though I know how to say that in Spanish) and it responded in Spanish which may be hard for absolute beginners.

I tried to use ChatGPT as a "live" translator with my in laws and I noticed it is extremely bad at language "consistency" or at understanding your intent when it comes to multiple languages.

It will sometimes respond in English when you talk to it in the foreign language, it will sometimes assume that a clear instruction like "repeat the last sentence" needs to be translated, etc.

I don't know how the person above is approaching the problem but your experience is consistent with mine and I don't think GenAI models (at least OpenAI ones) are suitable for the task.