AI in Language learning

Hi all,

A few days back I discovered Quazel where you could have open-ended conversations with an AI. It seemed similar to what’s going on with the ChatGPT craze I have heard so much about on TV, but focusing more on language learning.

That got me thinking: How will AI change language learning? Will there still be a need for human tutors? How can I best incorporate these new tools into my language learning?
Curious about what you think and what tips and tricks you might have already developed.

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Honestly, I’m not sure there was ever really a need for human tutors, but yeah, they must be afraid for their jobs now, just as many other people will be. Once programs like ChatGPT fully incorporate text-to-speech, and especially as that technology becomes more and more advanced, it’ll basically end any “need” to hire a tutor. That said, I still imagine we’ll have to pay in some way, as it grows in popularity.

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ChatGPT is turning out to be a very useful tool. I incorporate it to create stories that involve specific grammar concepts I have a problem with. For example, I tell it to write a story in the present tense, then the past tense, and then the perfect tense in German. The same story. This way I get to read a lot of repetition of the same words and to see how the same ideas are expressed in different tenses. Then I import them into LingQ for reading.

Also, I can create fill-in-the-blank type drilling exercises involving certain grammar concepts.
However, I am not sure if the text-to-speech can emulate 100% the intonation of that of a native speaker. For example, there is an option for creating text-to-speech audio within a lesson here on LingQ. Man, it seems way off the mark from the real German I get to hear from native Germans here in Germany.

In my humble opinion, there is always a need of talking with real native tutors to hear the real intonation of the language. Nonetheless, their frequency of help might be less in the near future with AI tools.

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I told it to summarize the current situation in Sudan in the form of a limerick and the results were pretty good.

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So, I think this is perfect to go here. I remember I got an email a couple weeks ago about this and I found the YT video with Steve talking about ChatGPT, AI and language learning.

It’s a great video, I’d recommend to check it out.

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I’ve tried ChatGPT with its new voice features. It definitely has potential for language learners, but I’m finding the voice version of it very clunky at the moment. I tried using it to learn German, but I found it constantly wanted to switch to an American accent while it was speaking German (with the very obvious mispronunciations that go along with that). I’m not sure if I was using the app wrongly, but I was never able to get it configured to speak with me in a proper accent. And I’m pretty good when it comes to getting software to work, so I think it needs some work.

But as I said, there’s huge potential there, and for text-only, it works nicely. I just can’t get the voice feature to work at the moment.