Hacker News Reader

Comment by __jambo | Hacker News Reader

This is interesting, but it's a tech solution that decreases person-to-person contact which is bad because isolation breeds hatred and anxiety. Just go talk to someone, there are so many people who want to do language exchanges. The problem with language learning is usually consistency and engagement/interest, you don't need tech. This app is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, and that creates more problems.

However, it is impressive and probably has application elsewhere. I think this should be pivoted to law, customer service some other target market.

View on HN

What? This is a conversation partner that's available 24/7, this is the dream app for any language learner.

Seconded, I want to speak openly without fear of judgement first with the AI so when I do speak to real people I'm much more confident. I know people who are confident/shameless (a positive trait in this case) who don't mind making mistakes when speaking to real people but that's not me.

My only concern is how "correct" the tool or the AI is.

100% this. Children make mistakes all the time, but they're not afraid to, especially at the stage they're first acquiring the language. But by the time you're an adult, you're much more cautious about appearing dumb, so you hold back.

You should work on your ability to act/speak in spite of the fear of making mistakes more than your skill.

It is a fundamentally important property of society. We should not be afraid to even speak. Everyone has a different reality, mistakes are often highly relative. Richness of culture (and lack of political tyranny) comes from this interaction and lack of it is almost always bad.

To clarify, when I meant speak, I meant speak in a language that I have just started to learn.

Bear with me, I'm going to start with an analogous situation, and then tie it to this one.

I play Go (the board game) at a fairly high level and have been participating in clubs and teaching Go for the better part of 15 years. The simplest and easiest way to get better is to play the game a lot, hopefully against someone a little bit better than you are. You don't even have to spend a ton of time on it, just play and once you're done think about the moves you made and maybe a place or two where you could have done better. There's several websites where you can make a free account and just click up button to say "hey, I'd like to play now!" and within minutes (or longer, this depends on the server and the level that you're playing at) you'll have a game you can get done in 30minutes.

It's crazy how hard it is to get people to play other people.

Most recently I've taught 5 people at my current workplace how to play. I've gotten them to play me, and, sometimes, each other. They've all made accounts on various sites to play, I've played them on those sites! They'll even sometimes play a robot on those sites (playing a bot isn't the best, but it is a little helpful).

Not a single one of them are willing to start a game with a stranger.

I'm sure nerves are part of it. But the reasoning I've heard time and time again, and not just with these 5, but with the dozens of people I've taught over the years, is some variation of "I don't want to waste their(my opponents) time".

They seriously feel like because they are still so new to the game, and still so unskilled that they would not be worth playing, that they would be "wasting" their opponent's time.

Take this to language learners, a lot of people do feel like as a beginner, talking to someone who is fluent is wasting the time of the fluent person. You're not paying them in the language exchange, you're just babbling to them like a 3 year old, a grown up who can't even carry on a whole conversation beyond "donde esta la biblioteca?".

You are right, language exchanges and just speaking with someone _is_ the best way to learn! It's super hard to break through the fear, embarrassment, and feelings of wasting another person's time with your own drivel.

Something like this, like the bots that play Go, are a way to bridge the gap.

You are generalising too much from one online community that has significantly different incentives because it is competitive and ranked and probably full of elitism. Have you been to any language meetups? I have. It's easy to find people. That's that.

Still, whatever, I'm obviously not everyone.

Good luck!

Maybe, but it's something that I've observed while teaching, and learning, anything that requires another human's time and effort.

People don't want to bother someone else when their problem seems "elementary" or too low on the "beginner level".

I've observed the same when tutoring others in math, programming, or physics. Even though we have an existing relationship where I will help them work through school work people tend to be very anxious about asking for that help.

I've seen it with new coworkers who spend waaaay too much time trying to figure something out by themselves when they could have just walked over and just asked for the answer.

"I didn't want to bother you" is a refrain I've heard a lot from others in a large number of situations, teaching Go is one where it's more directly analogous to learning a language through speaking, because it requires another human's time, and the resources are extremely easy to access.

I agree with you. Although it is a useful app in isolation, it contributes to people being less dependent on others. Once you get to a sufficient level that you can talk, you should just find another person instead of interacting with AI.

Another problem with language exchanges is that for every two hours invested you get only one benefit, the one in the foreign language. When you have a tool like this, getting started is much easier because you are not dependent on another person's commitment. I find this tool very interesting.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com