Ask HN: Does this exist? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Does this exist?

3 pointsnkkollaw6 comments

I have an idea for a service.

Basically, a bot you can voice chat with, in a language you're trying to learn.

The thing is that it would use AI to learn the vocabulary you know, and try to create sentences using only words you know, throwing in a new one knowingly every once in a while, accompained by a dictionary card with the definition.

Compared to reading, you get used to hearing and speaking the language, and it helps build confidence.

Compared to doing conversation with a human being, you don't have to worry if the other person gets bored, and you build confidence gradually even if you're self-conscious. Also, the bot would only use words you know, and allow you to make progress little by little (or faster if it sees that you can master new words quickly).

The biggest problem I see is language recognition. Dialects where once a major problem and I can imagine having a heavy accent will be a problem here too. Another problem would be grammar. You are not just learning vocabulary you are also learning a new grammar and will make mistakes. Maybe this can be corrected by knowing what the original language of the learner is.

I like the idea. But this is a hard problem and I doubt there exists a functioning version of this.

Definitely a hard problem. I was looking to leverage any existing API I can use. I've tried Google Vision for text and it's amazing. If there was something for audio...

I told a friend of mine who's into machine learning and AI.

I think that it's possible for the program to get to know how you pronounce things via machine learning. I'm not an expert in this space, though.

I could start with learning English, since from my experience software often works better than with other languages.

This might be the closest thing:

http://bots.duolingo.com/

If they had an API (which, they do not), somebody could build a TTS + voice recognition wrapper for this functionality, creating the experience you mentioned.

Even if it exists, since you don't know a dominant brand in this space, effectively, the market is wide open for you, if you come with a superior technology

I like your idea. Like John I doubt such a thing exists.

Probably not.

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