Comment by GenericDev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by GenericDev | Hacker News Reader

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This is really slick!

I really appreciate you having Japanese as a language choice. I've been dying to hone my japanese skills with AI in lieu of reading grammar/vocab books etc.

I definitely intend to use your product more, because it is definitely scratching that itch!

A couple of things that might help me personally would be the ability to cancel my current response and redo it, as frequently I will stutter or pause on a thought and wish I could restart over.

In that same vein I would love to see the output of what I'm saying in real-time. If only to gauge and understand what the application "thinks" I'm saying and to potentially correct and miscommunications from spoken input.

I would also love the chance to role play or have the tool help me learn contextual role playing. For example in Japanese keigo is a skill I just haven't mastered. I would love a tool to help put me in positions where I need to use keigo, and then be corrected where I'm failing.

Regardless, this is absolutely fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing! You're awesome :)

> For example in Japanese keigo is a skill I just haven't mastered.

Other than very common scenarios like introductions, spare yourself the headache.

If you are a diplomat or something similar, understanding it might be useful, but using it can be a minefield (e.g., you better know the hierarchy of everyone around you so that you use the appropriate language).

> I would love a tool to help put me in positions where I need to use keigo

In most if not all cases, if you find yourself in a situation that keigo is both standard and expected, one of two things will likely be true:

1. You will have been selected based on your ability to use keigo (e.g., customer facing roles that use keigo like banks).

2. There will be one or more people in your organization who will make sure you know what you need to know.

Most non-native speakers I have known who try to learn keigo use it in really unnatural and sometimes awkward ways.

I have known three people who “got it right”, and maybe a fourth. All are super fluent in “normal” Japanese and are lifelong students of the language.

1. Currently a professor of Japanese. PhD in Japanese from U Hawaii.

2. Polymath Cambridge grad who worked for Cambridge University Press. It was not uncommon for Japanese people to whisper to me about how freakishly good his Japanese was, especially when speaking about formal or technical topics.

3. Power nerd who went deep into the Japanese sword drawing martial art (iaidou). Also a professor.

4. Just a guess, but HN’s patio11 is probably good at keigo. I would listen to anything he has to say about the topic over anything I say.

I'm mystified by this comment. Keigo isn't some high-level PhD topic, it's used constantly in everyday usage. Even an intermediate speaker needs to understand some, or they'll be unable to follow many basic conversations. And sure, nobody is likely to yell at a foreigner for not using it perfectly, but given how common it is it's a very reasonable thing for even an intermediate speaker to want to practice.

See my reply here for more info:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36982980

> Keigo isn't some high-level PhD topic

It gets multiple book level treatment in Japanese (if you’re in Japan, please ask about the keigo section at a decent bookstore), and I am familiar with at least a few post-graduate papers on the topic.

Some additional comments:

1. Something like this link (http://keigo.livedoor.biz/archives/cat_14420.html) might be a good intermediate level of keigo. A lot of the less common keigo on those pages get butchered by non-native speakers when they try to use it (mainly because they shouldn’t be using it).

> given how common it is it's a very reasonable thing for even an intermediate speaker to want to practice

2. Unless someone is a diplomat, a 会社員 or in some sort of traditional arts, I would humbly suggest that they could go their entire lives without producing any keigo outside of memorized words and phrases (e.g., おはようございます) and could be seen as a highly fluent, high-functioning speaker by Japanese people. The basic link I provided in my first reply and the intermediate link in this reply are plenty to have receptive knowledge of, but one could argue that the important keigo in these lists simply falls under slightly more difficult memorized words and phrases (something acquired relatively early at lower proficiency) rather than advanced generative rules (something acquired much later at higher levels of proficiency).

3. Referring back to your “not a high level PhD topic” comment , I sure as hell would love to read some detailed breakdowns of top tier keigo use and keigo faux pas (especially in high level negotiations). I’ve never seen anything first-hand, but have I heard some stories. I’m pretty sure the best stories never leave the room they were uttered in.

To close, I’m not sure what your experience is with Japan and Japanese language, but I get the sense they you and I see keigo very, very differently.

Fwiw, I have been part of a training team that trained folks who were in “protocol positions” in Japan, and I can tell you that keigo was a constant sphincter-clinching aspect of that training (usually bypassed with an interpreter in high stakes Japanese-language situations, using English-English most of the other time in less formal situations, and using memorized words and phrases the rest of the time).

> It gets multiple book level treatment in Japanese (if you’re in Japan, please ask about the keigo section at a decent bookstore), and I am familiar with at least a few post-graduate papers on the topic.

There are entire PhD theses on aspects of English (or Spanish, German, Italian, French, Russian, ...) grammar too. That doesn't mean that people can not learn to use the aspect in question intuitively. It just means that it's difficult to provide an explanation for this behaviour.

> I get the sense they you and I see keigo very, very differently.

I'm using the term the same way wikipedia does, and all the links you posted - it's a broad category of usages including 尊敬語, 謙譲語, etc. It's not some rare thing - if you walk into a 7-11 or restaurant, literally every sentence spoken to you will include some kind of keigo. It sounds like you're using the term solely to mean the highest heights of formalism, but I don't know where you're getting that usage.

＞It sounds like you're using the term solely to mean the highest heights of formalism, but I don't know where you're getting that usage.

The keigo you refer to is the easiest keigo to learn, and much of it is learned as a beginning learner as memorized words and phrases.

In the context of the person I originally replied to, this type of content is either trivially easy to study/learn or not worth learning (e.g., most learners don’t really need to know that おはようございます is a highly stylized form of はやい — the memorized phrase and others like it are more than adequate until one is an advanced learner).

The keigo that would warrant using an AI speaking partner would, imho, lean towards the much more complicated aspects of keigo.

Note that I have actually referred this tool to folks who do training in keigo (and other language things). I’m not sure how the tool will do or what type of prompts need to be used to get the right type of engagement, but I think that there is potential on this front for advanced learners. For lower level learners, this tool is massive overkill.

Edit:

Note that most English-language web pages about keigo cover the simplest (and least interesting, imho) parts of keigo. Part of this is due to SEO, but part of it is probably due to ignorance about the topic.

For anyone interested, and if their Japanese is good enough, just search Amazon Japan for books on keigo. The topic is quite deep and can be incredibly fascinating. The content covered on English web pages just scratches the surface of the scope of keigo.

As a linguistic category it includes teineigo and set phrases, but when a JP learner says keigo they probably mean the stuff introduced the "keigo" chapters of JP textbooks, which starts with おっしゃる, 下さる, いただく, お～になる and so on. And again, those are everyday usages that are perfectly reasonable for even an intermediate learner to want to practice (and the person you replied to may be beyond intermediate). Sure there's also lots of other keigo that most learners would rarely encounter, but that's no reason to jump all over someone who says they want to practice it - you wouldn't tell someone not to bother with kanji just because there are characters they'll never need.

> … which starts with おっしゃる, 下さる, いただく, お～になる and so on. And again, those are everyday usages that are perfectly reasonable for even an intermediate learner to want to practice

Serious question…

Unless this “intermediate learner” works in a Japanese-language position (like a 会社員), is a diplomat, or is involved in a traditional art (or these types of relatively rare categories), in what context would they ever produce utterances using any of these words appropriately and naturally?

This is just not the type of language that intermediate learners need to produce very often. When they do, their organization will most likely train them beforehand, use an interpreter, or just not care.

I lived in Japan 8 years, and I worked in a Japanese-language environment. I’m pretty sure the times I had the opportunity to use any of the words you listed appropriately could probably be counted on my fingers and maybe extending to my toes.

Granted, I was not in a position of power (those folks used keigo all the time), and I was not directly involved in any highish stakes negotiations or business transactions (e.g., didn’t buy a house) but still…

> in what context would they ever produce utterances using any of these words appropriately and naturally?

Part-time job? Friends or in-laws they'd like to impress? Studying for JLPT? Just wanting to be able to speak everyday Japanese as it's spoken?

Respectfully, I really think you have a distorted sense of this due to whatever your background is. Per a quick google, some of the terms I listed earlier show up in JLPT from level 3. I'm no expert but I don't think N3 is considered high-level diplomacy territory. If you got by here without using such terms that's fine, but it's no argument against studying them - lots of people get by without learning kanji, etc.

Somebody wants to learn a language properly and you're saying "don't bother". I don't get it.

It's a matter of priority - you can get by fine without using keigo, and instead of learning all the weird intricacies of keigo you could go learn something more practical for day-to-day use first (even native Japanese speakers complain about keigo, e.g. use of manual keigo). Teineigo is perfectly sufficient in everyday use.

To put it another way, it's a bit like trying to to learn about how to write in the style of a judicial opinion when you're still learning how to talk to someone at the bar.

Well, OP didn't specify what their level was. Maybe they're already fluent? In which case learning more advanced things does make sense. Although I would never trust ChatGPT to use advanced Keigo properly (especially with the lack of context dictated by social settings), let alone to correct it and explain its usage

> Somebody wants to learn a language properly and you're saying "don't bother". I don't get it.

Yeah. I can see that. Let me see if I can expand.

1. Keigo falls into the category of “specific purpose” (SP) language. SP language can be relatively simple things like tourism language, or it can be very deep and technical like scientific, medical, engineering, etc. SP language is typically taught and learned on a need to know basis, and it’s totally possible to be highly fluent (usually measured in terms of general proficiency) and not know anything about SP language.

2. Keigo (and this is way more than basic formal and honorific language) is used in very specific situations. As a foreigner, in almost all cases that matter, there will be an interpreter or the foreigner will be trained in keigo.

3. For reference, I think that most of the keigo that I would recommend a non-native speaker learn can be found at this link (it’s a small and easy to learn list):

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/japanese/japanese-keigo/

Furthermore, I think that most of this language is more useful receptively (listening and reading) and will almost never need to be produced (spoken or written).

4. As far as proficiency goes, most keigo would be ILR 5 / CEFR C2, with the basics linked above being ILR 4 / CEFR C1 (used dynamically… much lower as memorized set phrases). When you’re at that level and needing keigo, you know you are lacking in keigo and make an effort to learn it. Before that would probably be a learning sequencing error (other than nerdy curiosity).

Beyond learning the content in the link above, most foreigners will not find themselves in the context of needing to know or use keigo. As special purpose language, it should really only be pursued if necessary. Otherwise, the knowledge learned will most likely be forgotten due to lack of use, or it will be used awkwardly and possibly inappropriately (as I mentioned before).

If it’s just a nerd itch to scratch, then go for it. For most people, I think there are more compelling aspects of Japanese to spend time on.

> Beyond learning the content in the link above

If you put it like that - OK. I was under the impression that you were implying "learn no Keigo at all beyond introductions (except Teineigo)", which would seem rather odd to me, as I've definitely heard 行ってまいります, Xでございます, etc. in Anime and movies.

If you're talking about the advanced uses that even many native speakers struggle with (unless properly trained), then yeah, maybe it's specialised vocab that you won't necessarily need.

> If you're talking about the advanced uses that even many native speakers struggle with (unless properly trained)

To me, this is the part that is keigo. The other stuff is relatively simple and early in terms of language acquisition.

Assuming that others share my definition of keigo may be assuming to much on my part.

IIRC, for Japanese people, even Teineigo is part of Keigo.

In learners' resources (where Teineigo is introduced usually right at the start), my impression is that Teineigo is not included, and that Keigo starts with Sonkeigo and Kenjougo. That's still introduced comparatively early, but much later than Teineigo (I think, it's in Genki 2, for example).

Thanks - glad it's useful for your Japanese. Do you like it being in the Japanese writing system or would you prefer phoenetical English? Wasn't sure which to do on that one.

Thanks for the feedback. The processing point has come up a couple of times so I'll definitely be adding that, and I'll look into doing some contextual scenarios. If your language is good enough, you could try prompting it to act as, eg a waiter in a restauraunt, but that's far from ideal for beginners!

Sure - realtime transcription makes a lot of sense. I'll look into it.

Absolutely, please keep Japanese output the way it is - it's the only approach that makes sense. Romanization loses a lot of information and makes things harder (except possibly for the absolute beginners), not easier.

However, it'd be extra cool if there'd be an option to display furigana - in case user had forgotten or doesn't know some particular kanji. Or maybe just throw an option to replay the audio.

Got it. Will learn about those and see what I can do.

>Do you like it being in the Japanese writing system or would you prefer phoenetical English? Wasn't sure which to do on that one.

Please do NOT use romaji. I honestly hate it when language-learning apps try to force romaji on me; it's not useful for learning the language. The written language in Japan is Japanese (hiragana/katakana/kanji), not romaji, so I just find it a distraction. Part of learning the language is learning to read it, not just to talk in it, and being forced to read it in its native script is far more useful than latin transliteration. That said, having furigana for unfamiliar kanji is really helpful too.

Got it. Thanks for the feedback.

> Do you like it being in the Japanese writing system or would you prefer phoenetical English?

Definitely Japanese writing system. Thanks.

Amazing tool.

Fwiw, if you’re looking to monetize, you may want to try to get a contract with the DoD. I would start with special operations (lots of money and urgent mission/training needs), and then move on to the Defense Language Institute.

Oral proficiency interviews (OPIs) are part of the qualifying standard, and everyone wants more practice.

Thanks for the kind words. That sounds like an interesting idea. Any chance you have a contact? Am UK-based so imagine it would be hard to get a meeting with the DoD from here. If so, I'd obviously be incredibly grateful, and here's my email: chris@prettypolly.app

Thanks again, Chris

Oh! I didn't know that. I'm really new to how to interact with AI. I'll try that out.

Please please please keep it in Japanese. Phonetic english for Japanese is awful. Hiragana only for Japanese is really not ideal.

The current output is absolutely perfect.

Also, I think it's really cool I don't need an account to try that out. Very cash money of you.

Ahah hear you loud and clear - no phoenetical words. Of course - hope it continues to help you learn!

Both. But perhaps also hiragana/katakana option too, like children’s book do when there is a kanji. Full on kanji is beyond me and I don’t expect to be able to pick it up just by seeing it in these conversations

nthing the consensus here - it's very good as-is, even though I maxed out my conversational ability fairly quickly.

The only changes I would make are to the UI, clicking the start and stop listening button feels awkward. Perhaps make it so you can click, talk, and release the button. And perhaps the option to select a few different voices.

Also intrigued to see where you go with Anki integration. Excellent work, you should feel very proud of what you've built so far.

Yes - Anki integration is one of the things I'm keen to do next. I'm convinced that any good language learning app needs spaced repitition.

Got it. Thinking of making it possible to control the mic by holding the space bar, although that wouldn't work for mobile obviously. What devices were you testing it on if you don't mind me asking?

I've just tried it on my desktop. I probably wouldn't use this mobile.

Cool, thanks for getting back

definitely Japanese writing system. Thank you!

Got it, thanks!

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