Comment by criley2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by criley2 | Hacker News Reader

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I have a half dozen language learning apps on my phone and have vibe coded a few concepts as well and while spaced recognition is amazing, it still suffers from the duolingo "vocabulary is not a language" problem.

IMO the way around users feeling like spaced recognition isn't progression is by redefining progression away from memorizing vocabulary into into becoming proficient in conversation both listening and speaking. If spaced recognition vocab is just one feature of a holistic experience, users will judge their progression holistically.

I'm really waiting for that one app that finally connects ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode or Gemini Live to a context-aware and well trained language tutor. I can already have impromptu practice sessions with both in Mandarin and English but they quickly lose the plot regarding their role as a tutor. I'd love to have them available as part of a learning journey. I can study vocab and flash cards all day but the second that voice starts speaking sentences and I need to understand in real time, I freeze up. The real progress is conversing!

I’ve pointed this out before on HN, but if you want to use ChatGPT as a language partner, you must provide a topic. Expecting it to behave as a proactive teacher is a recipe for disappointment.

Here’s what I typically do:

- Create a custom GPT (mine is called Polly the Glot) with a system prompt instructing it to act as a language partner that responds only in Chinese or your target language of choice. Further specify that the user will paste a story or topic before beginning practice, and that this should guide the discussion.

- Start a new chat.

- Paste in an article from AP/Reuters.

- Turn on Voice Chat.

At that point, I’ll head out to walk my dog and can usually get about 30 minutes to an hour of solid language practice in.

Fair warning, you'll likely need to be at least an intermediate student by this point otherwise it'll probably be too much over your head.

Caveat: You could including a markdown file of your known vocabulary as an knowledge attachment in the custom GPT but I've no idea how well that would work in practice.

I have played around pretty significantly with the markdown context idea but managing it by hand is pretty tough.

- I take chinese tutoring lessons on italki with a tutor who uses notion (copy paste in markdown)

- I copy/paste our notion notes in markdown into a repo for storage

- I use AI to summarize lessons and to keep general context on progress

- I use AI to generate a voice AI lesson plan, such as 10 words to focus on, reviewing a specific human tutoring session, or some conversational focus area.

- I start the advanced voice AI with the context

Unfortunately the AI still loses the plot pretty quickly and devolves into free form conversation. It struggles significantly to enforce any kind of structure that would be helpful for structured learning. I haven't tried this in a few months though, maybe newer models are improving.

If you've vibe coded a few language learning apps, maybe we should collab. Check my bio to see what I've done in this space. I'm trying to make the best free language-learning app on the planet

>but the second that voice starts speaking sentences and I need to understand in real time, I freeze up. The real progress is conversing!

What helped me a lot was doing a lot of listening exercises. Start with concentrating on what you can recognize, not on what you can't. Then listen again and and again and again trying to recognize more and more.

That's what I do and it helps and many apps let me do just that. Repeating it, reading the hanzi, reading the pinyin, and it all makes sense.

But there's something about the "conversation" between a real human or an AI voice mode where you're not on the rails. It's real time and you have to lock in and understand. That's where the magic happens!

How is spaced recognition different from spaced repetition? Recall is different from merely recognition, right?

Sorry, just a typo on my part, I meant spaced repetition.

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