I am doing something similar but mix more simpler and didn’t even get to the stage of building an llm tool. I am just using ChatGPT to distill common learning books and set aside 1 hr thrice a week. I made considerable progress, to me and then I used Italki to confirm.
I used voice mode on ChatGPT to learn the tones for mandarin, and general vocab and sentence structure while for Japanese it helped me expand proper sentence structure greatly.
It sounds silly, but it helped reenforce a base structure that is helpful and having it confirmed by a tutor was nice. Best is I can really do it whenever. What op posted does sound next stage, and I can imagine it’d be a viable platform.
I don’t suggest notebookllm to make an audiobook, I tried and it was the most dryest speech I ever heard. It did sound convincing enough if you were to do a podcast for it and that is what it does.. but it was completely horrid for learning but maybe that’s just me.
LLMs surely can help with language learning, but when they write posts like this, the zombie/body snatchers/borg effect is so strong as to be unreadable. Just write it yourself! You can do it! It will be better, please please stop generating bad boilerplate language with these fascinating algorithms, PLEASE!
This was so obviously LLM-authored that I stopped reading after just a couple of sentences. The author here has done themselves a disservice - mastering complex written grammar is meaningless if you cannot speak it or recognize spoken language. Interacting with a real French person for a few minutes should have been enough to cement this.
There’s an interesting disconnect here, where the author of this piece apparently wants to learn French, and knows English, and they want to share how they went about learning French with an English audience.
But despite being a native English speaker, they couldn’t be bothered to actually write the article themselves. What’s the point of learning a language - any language - if you’re not even going to use your own words like an adult?
Watch movies and listen to people if you want grammar to stick. Languages are living things. Not something you practice in a bubble with Anki and Duolingo.
I think the author would have had a better reception without the triumphant “canceled French tutor” framing. The juxtaposition of “learning a language” with “cutting out the human element” is very off-putting.
"I, a person who does not speak French or understand its grammar, am convinced that AI has made me better at speaking French and understanding its grammar than a tutor would."
This just isn't a reliable source, even putting aside trying to measure language proficiency through memorising grammar.
I'm surprised by the pushback by some people here; I wonder if they're actually learning French (or another language) themselves or just reacting generally against use of LLMs vs. humans here (a common trend on HN). I am learning French, and LLMs have proven to be very useful for me. Great to see the author go beyond current LLM voice exchanges by employing spaced repetition; thank you! I'll check it out.
I learned French, now living in France. I took a course to pretty much improve my accent and to not rely on translation when speaking. Our teacher never spoke English to us since day one, using images instead to relay messages.
What really helped me enforce what I learned is talking to real people online. There are plenty of groups in Discord where you can have conversations with people of different backgrounds and personalities, where you can capture vocabulary used by French speakers every day.
LLM is like Duolingo, you cannot rely on it alone. The OP cancelled their French course for this. You can use it but make sure to have different active and passive learning methods.
At the beginning of this blog I knew the author spoke regularly in French with at least one human regularly. When I stopped reading I was no longer certain they speak French with any humans. I hope they decide to speak to humans in French again someday.
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 37.2 ms ] threadI used voice mode on ChatGPT to learn the tones for mandarin, and general vocab and sentence structure while for Japanese it helped me expand proper sentence structure greatly.
It sounds silly, but it helped reenforce a base structure that is helpful and having it confirmed by a tutor was nice. Best is I can really do it whenever. What op posted does sound next stage, and I can imagine it’d be a viable platform.
I don’t suggest notebookllm to make an audiobook, I tried and it was the most dryest speech I ever heard. It did sound convincing enough if you were to do a podcast for it and that is what it does.. but it was completely horrid for learning but maybe that’s just me.
But despite being a native English speaker, they couldn’t be bothered to actually write the article themselves. What’s the point of learning a language - any language - if you’re not even going to use your own words like an adult?
Watch movies and listen to people if you want grammar to stick. Languages are living things. Not something you practice in a bubble with Anki and Duolingo.
This just isn't a reliable source, even putting aside trying to measure language proficiency through memorising grammar.
What really helped me enforce what I learned is talking to real people online. There are plenty of groups in Discord where you can have conversations with people of different backgrounds and personalities, where you can capture vocabulary used by French speakers every day.
LLM is like Duolingo, you cannot rely on it alone. The OP cancelled their French course for this. You can use it but make sure to have different active and passive learning methods.