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Comment by phpisatrash | Hacker News Reader

It really looks cool. But, why it doesn't have English? Or meybe if it does have, why isn't showed first?

People who use language learning apps are focused in learning English most of the time. Still those who speak fluently are trying to improve their speaking and listening.

And the first language which appeared for me was Brazilian Portuguese which is my mother language.

[Edit] I was trying the Brazilian Portuguese mode, and apparently it is Portuguese from Portugal, because the answer given used a verb tense that is not common in Brazil.

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Hahah I have a super silly response for this one: It's simply because we have not gotten around to translate the UI and everything into other languages besides english. That's why we simple assume people know english, since they need to be able to know at least some english to use it. But it's high on our to-do list.

I think you misunderstood what they're missing: the ability to converse and practise English, given it's a foreign language for some people.

So then the UI would need to be in their non-English language, which is what they are saying.

Not necessarily. Learning enough English to understand the UI is much lower level than being able to converse.

It's also the difference between active and passive command of the language.

Also "right click -> Translate to <x>" takes care of the UI automatically (in Chrome at least) but still doesn't solve the issue that English can not used to converse with the AI.

> Not necessarily. Learning enough English to understand the UI is much lower level than being able to converse.

Exactly this. For example, I am learning German and have changed the language of my reading tablet's UI to German. That in itself is a useful learning tool.

My kids are struggling to learn English; would be very happy to use that with them. I can help in translating the UI in French if you'd like!

The UI can be in English for people who want to learn English. People who study languages are at different proficiency levels (very few people are blank slates with no knowledge of the language).

You don't need to translate English UI for training English because there are quite a lot of person don't talk / listen well even though he can write / read English quite okay.

It's because Reading / Writing can train oneself but conversation must be training in both sides, which always inadequate in some area, such as HK, since we don't talk in English but we can read quite well

To prevent DoS from a tonne of people using it just as AI conversation buddy when they know English perfectly well? Or said another way - I think there's lots of English AI conversation bots available, they're just not necessarily marketed as 'for learning English'.

You can't train AI using another AI. If you could, these people would just run the service locally.

I'm not sure I follow/see the link to my comment?

Yeah. I been looking for a few months for services to improve my English in a cheap/free way. Until now some Discord channels have been my solution to practice conversation, but it would be nice to have this kind of service to speak anytime about any topic.

for what its worth what you just typed is completely indistinguishable from a native speaker, well done

The advantage of typing is that I can erase and improve what I'm trying to communicate. In real time I struggle thinking about pronunciation and if what I'm saying is correct or understandable by the other person.

Have you tried playing online multiplayer games? I found I was able to learn how to “think” in another language much better when I was under pressure to communicate something quickly in real time. It’s easy to fall into the trap of always translating to/from your native language which isn’t the end of the world when you’re reading or writing but it makes for pretty awkward and stilted conversations.

Try tandem to find people to talk with, it's free

This would be great for English. So many people need help with their conversational or small talk skills. Would be great for them to be able to practice even if they are native speakers. For public speaking, office communication training, self confidence development, etc.

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