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Comment by Hadjimina | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

> 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.

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.

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

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).

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!

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