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Comment by cwbuilds | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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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