Lots of websites floating around a central AI sphere

Powered by AI : Some Favourite Tools

If you’ve been following my recent posts, you’ll know that I’ve been embedding AI deeply into my language learning routine.

There are some truly min-blowing ways to incorporate ‘raw AI’ – using direct prompts with LLMs like ChatGPT – into your learning, from live activities with personality, to custom content creation. But likewise, there are plenty of ready-to-run, AI-infused sites that you can use for language fun.

Here are a few of my favourites!

KOME.AI – YouTube Transcript Generator

I came across this when asked by a friend struggling to transcribe a long conference talk video for work. Surely there’s some way to automate that? And sure there was, and it’s Kome.ai. 

It’s not the only transcription service out there – there are numerous ones, competing for supremacy – but it’s the most straightforward, it’s multilingual, and it’s free. It’s also fast, seemingly drawing on already-existing auto-captions where available, before kicking in with other tools where necessary. I pasted in a short news clip about the German teacher shortage – I had a transcript almost immediately.

Kome.ai, generating YouTube transcripts with AI

Delphi’s Digital Clones

Most of the best prompt strategies involve telling AI who you want it to be. Delphi.ai has taken that a step further, by digitally cloning experts in their field – their words and big takes, at least – and making them available to the public. Think ‘coach in a box’.

While the site is set up for those wishing to clone knowledge-imparting versions of themselves (language coach, anyone?), you can browse and chat with many of their demo models. The philosopher collection is particularly enlightening.

PERPLEXITY.AI

AI’s whole bag is text generation. Now, the big tech talk a bit game about these platforms also being digital assistants, but they’re basically content whizzes, and can still be lacking in other task performance areas. Searching seems to be one of these blind spots, which you’ll have realised quickly when faced with Bing’s sometimes laughably off-topic search results.

Perplexity.ai aims to change all that. The developers have taken an LLM, and purpose-designed it for finding sources and answering questions. Consequently, it’s much more useful for learners, educators, researchers, and anyone who doesn’t want their AI to completely miss the point. It’s the future of search.

Web search infused with AI from Perplexity.com

SUNO.AI

AI-generated music has been sneaking up on us all very quietly. It was text generation that was making all the bolshy fuss, up to now. Music was still very much experimental, and out of the question unless you were running models on a powerful testing machine.

But suddenly, we have services that can create whole songs – including lyrics – from a simple prompt. Suno.ai not only gives you that for free – you have ten tracks a day for nothing – but it’s fast, and uncannily good for an early release. And, although they don’t shout from the rooftops about it, it’s also a polyglot!

These aren’t just great, handy, fun sites to use. They also show how broad the brush of AI is, and will be, in the future. They offer a taste of how embedded the tech will become in all sorts of areas of our lives in the coming years.

Are there any emerging AI services you’re a fan of? Let us know if the comments!

Oculus Quest 2 : Screenshot of a street in Rome in the Wander app

Oculus Quest 2 : Virtual Language Hopping

You can bend almost anything to language learning. And this week, I’ve been using that excuse to justify numerous hours of VR gaming.

I recently gave in to my curiosity and plumped for an Oculus Quest 2 headset. Admittedly, it’s not my first foray into virtual reality. The technology has been edging into the mainstream for a couple of years now, and I got an early shot at it when a colleague – way ahead of me on the curve – brought his gear into the Linguascope office at the end of last year.

It blew my mind.

There’s something inspiringly sea change about it. I was in awe – you pop on that headset, and it just feels like the future. To put that into perspective, I grew up watching the likes of Back to the Future Part II, with its crazy holographic shark heads, and Tron, which placed players in the game. Those childhood fantasies were finally here.

That said, while playing it in the office, it wasn’t the footloose and fancy-free dash into the virtual sunlit uplands just yet. The tech seemed nascent, rather than ready. I was put off by the clunkiness, the wired nature of the headset, the need for a separate computer to run it.

Oculus Quest changed all of that.

It’s not only light, portable and powerful. It has some fantastic draws for language learning aficionados.

Oculus Quest 2 : Wander

Of course, VR has incredible potential to transform language learning directly through purpose-made applications. Mondly were the first to develop a language app for the Oculus platform, with an immersive conversation simulator. Sadly it remains available only for the older Rift headset.

In fact, the winning hook on the Quest 2 isn’t a language app, or even a regular, run-of-the-mill game in a foreign language. Rather, it’s the immersive Google Street View experience, Wander, that has me billing and cooing (in various languages).

The idea is incredibly simple: place the user within a 3D, virtual rendering of Google’s vast, extensive VR mapping of the world. The winning feature for us language bods is the fact that signage is everywhere, particularly in the cities. Wherever people gather, there is a wealth of material to read and decipher.

Japanese signage in Tokyo seen on Google Street View

Japanese signage in Tokyo seen on Google Street View

I must say that the virtual escape is hugely welcome in the year of the lockdown. Forget cheap getaways – how about no getaways? Wander had me exploring all of my old favourites. Berlin, Oslo, Reykjavik – the nostalgia was soaring, and the language was, comfortingly, all over the place. Street signs, shop windows, billboards – it had me feeling that language learner travel buzz all over again.

But it doesn’t stop at the familiarly far-flung. A particularly fun feature is ‘Random’, redubbed ‘Guess the Language’ (by me). Click it to be transported to anywhere in the world. Your mission? Find a signpost or billboard, and try to guess from the text where you are. My favourite so far has to be Kalaallisut (it almost stumped me, it did).

Hours of fun, my friends.

Gaming Proper

Gaming, of course, has long been open to a blend with language learning through conventional play options. Notably, Apple Arcade is bursting with goodies for linguists. Likewise, Oculus Quest has copious titles available to play in multiple languages. Spice and Wolf is an immersive experience available in Chinese (both varieties) and Japanese. Or if you prefer a bit of action, bestseller POPULATION: ONE allows you to play in French, German, Japanese, Korean or Spanish. Fire up those dictionaries!

As for me, I’m off to play a bit more BeatSaber just now. And if get any further into those BTS tunes, I’m going to be ordering Colloquial Korean at some point soon.

The Terracotta Warriors would no doubt fare very well on the Duolingo leaderboards.

Battleground Duolingo : Sun Tzu’s Art of Language Learning

Duolingo aficionados cannot have not have failed to miss the recent frenzy over competitive leaderboards. Perhaps you have – no doubt luckily – escaped the red mist and hidden sensibly away from the hordes. Instead, you might have recognised it in the glazed eyes of language learning friends and family who have succumbed.

Yes, Duolingo is merciless: it has been taking brave, eager, wide-eyed language explorers and ruthlessly transforming them into gladiators, one against the other.

The unintended consequence of all this is a new tribe of learner. It has spawned a vast band of Duo warriors. And warriors have one aesthetic: the Art of War. It’s no stretch to claim that Duolingo league tables have given rise to a code of conduct worthy of Sun Tzu himself.

Those tempting charms and glinting jewels wove their tentacles around me tightly, I must admit. So here, I share what I have learnt of this dark art. And, on a more serious note, how the whole shebang can help – or hinder, if we’re not careful – our language learning!

Duolingo: The Art of strigine strategy

Strategy is everything. What kind of warrior are you? There are three key tactics in the path to strigine victory. (Aye. I had to look that word up too.)

Runaway train

The runaway train is the blunt instrument of linguistic military tactics. It demands quick action. Straight off the mark on a Monday morning, the warrior owlet will steam ahead a few thousand points, leaving competitors scrabbling in the dust.

Fighters will have their go-to weapons at hand: the expert topic they can test on repeatedly to bank easy points. They will only switch to more complex instruments – higher level topics – when they are at a safe distance.

Keep looking over your shoulder, though. Those sneaky co-combatants will usually give valant chase. There is nothing more panic-inducing than seeing your closest challengers clock up the points at a rate of knots. Especially if you are stuck somewhere, unable to use your phone for a while…

Duolingo Runaway Train

Duolingo Runaway Train (usernames have been hidden to protect the innocent!)

Lurking with the pack

No time for a relentless sprint? Then lurk with the rest of the pack until the time comes to strike.

This strategy involves keeping pace with the frontrunners, jostling and leapfrogging daily. The sly player will hang back in third or fourth, so as not to induce phone notification panic in the unsuspecting leader. Of course, that is for the dogs on Sunday, as the whole stage is set up for an epic battle for first place.

The upside? Less time-intensive means less battle-weary so soon. And the slow creep will drive your opponents crazy. But be prepared for vocab carnage on Sunday evening!

Duolingo Lurking With The Pack

Lurking With The Pack

The surprise attack

Everybody loves an underdog. Except Duolingo users you unleash this strategy on!

The surprise attacker keeps back a fair distance, biding time at the bottom of the table. It’s an easy week for this Duolingo paladin, merely keeping pace with the minimum amount of effort per day. That way, nobody suspects…

Suddenly, on Sunday night, your powers are unleashed. You thrash away at the keyboard or touch-screen for hours, rising like a phoenix to overtake your clueless adversaries. You were down – but never out.

The price you pay? Well, your whole Sunday, I’m afraid. Because this warrior ain’t going anywhere while there are several thousand points to make up. But it’s worth it to grin from the top of victory mountain. Right?

I just hope there isn’t a runaway train at the top of your leaderboard…

Basking in the glory

And there you have it. A battle plan any self-respecting warlord would have been proud of.

But of course, the warrior is also advised to take a large pinch of salt with every pre-fight meal. Duolingo battleboards are joyful, gamified fun for everyone invested in the system, but not to be taken too seriously.

The question on every fighter’s lips: do they actually work?

Everything in moderation

Well, competitive league-tabling is a bit of fun at best, and nigglingly passive aggressive at worst. The watchful, always-on mindset it fosters is a hoot, but it can get a little fatiguing and time-consuming in the long run. That goes especially for naturally competitive people, whose buttons are furiously pressed by all this. (Yup, me.)

That said, the approach is a wonderful motivator for ensuring very regular practice. But it does require discipline on the part of the user, as the format may encourage some poor habits. The most time-wasting of these is going for easy points, rather than slogging away at difficult units for the same gain. The best way to beat this temptation is to impose house rules on yourself, such as only mining points from higher-level topics.

Seeking points in new places

On the other hand, the hunger for points fosters some very good habits, too, such as dabbling. Points pressure makes it doubly rewarding to dip into the first lessons of a brand new language. This is not least because initial lessons on Duolingo tend to be rather short, and yield a speedy cache of 10-15 points per shot.

Elementary Turkish, for example, has been a saving grace for me this week. Teşekkürler! Beyond the helping hand up a few rungs, a dip into Turkish might just have given me enough of a taste to keep going with it at some point.

Talking of quick point gains, there is also the incentive to dive back into stronger, but less-practised languages. That would be Spanish and French for me, and golding up my Duolingo trees for that pair has become a side goal in itself. A focus on your already proficient languages can also avoid the cognitive dissonance you feel at seeing your developmental languages many levels about them! Let’s get that Duolingo profile matching your real-life skills, eh?

Need for speed

Finally, success in these competitions is often about speed. And speed-translating is an excellent route to building muscle memory in your developing languages. Challenging the brain to deliver an accurate answer within seconds is handy training for routine quick thinking. Because being fast can be handy, both in Duolingo battles and real life, when we often have to seize upon the correct turn of phrase on the spot.

Duolingo have once again played a blinder with addictive learning, turning us all into lingua-warriors. With a bit of healthy moderation, learning this Art of War could build some excellent new habits!

Voice assistants - multilingual robot helpers in your phone! (Image from freeimages.com)

You cannot be Siri-ous! Voice Assistants for Language Learning

Switching the language settings on your phone is a well-known trick for fast-tracking your language learning. But with constant improvement to Voice Assistant technology like Siri and Google Assistant, learners have something potentially even more exciting in their pockets: a mobile native speaker.

How can we take advantage of this ubiquitous technology? And how effective is it as a learning tool?

I road-tested the technique over the past few weeks using Siri in Norwegian on my iPhone. And above all, it has been a fun ride!

Behaviour change

The irony is that in spite of the widespread nature of the tech, Voice Assistants struggle to find a regular place in our lives. Barely a quarter of mobile users speak to their phone daily; 40% say they have never used the feature. Many of us leave the powerful technology of personalised AI unused, even in our native languages.

From my own personal experience, and that of family and friends, it seems that Voice Assistant apps are entertaining curios rather than serious tools. When was the last time you last asked your phone for something?

Given all this, just using Siri at all is a behaviour change for a lot of us. But that makes this technique something of a voyage of discovery, too. Just what can our clever smartphones actually do?

Vocab of the day-to-day

The answer: well, not quite everything, despite the grand claims. Siri and Google Assistant have a set of skills which focus very tightly on the organisation of the day-to-day. They are not as clever at more transactional, lengthy exchanges. So while they might not improve your general conversation skills, they provide an excellent language workout for weather, time and place vocabulary in particular.

Through experimenting with your phone, will find your own unique way to fit these specified skills of foreign language Voice Assistants into your life. For me, as a walker, the handiest phrases in my everyday have been:

  • What is the temperature today?
  • How is the weather today?
  • When is sunset today?

After repeated use of those, my Norwegian weather and time vocab is positively steaming! And the best thing? I typically hate practising number, time and date vocabulary in any language. That is the material I will skip first to get to the ‘meaty’ stuff as a learner. The novelty of using Siri in Norwegian has finally got me practising – and remembering – those essential phrases. Aiming to ask one or two of these questions daily makes for a good weekly plan tactic, too.

Using a Voice Assistant to practise speaking Norwegian

Using a Voice Assistant to practise speaking Norwegian

Thinking on your feet

Microchips are not perfect. Your voice assistant may not always understand you first time round. That goes especially for the early stages of language learning when our speech is less colloquial. But the upside to that? It is a stellar learning opportunity.

Misunderstandings with your digital assistant force you to practise rephrasing, an essential skill in speaking foreign languages. If it doesn’t work first time, say it again in a different way. It is just as valid with your Voice Assistant as with a flesh-and-blood native speaker.

Of course, this can be a challenge. After three attempts at finding out where the nearest supermarket is, desperation may creep in. But it does force you to be creative!

Have a little fun

Now, riveting conversation all this may not be. But that is not to say that there is no attempt on the part of the developers to add some personality spice. Who hasn’t said something silly to their Voice Assistant on the first encounter, just to elicit a funny response?

If you tire of the weather, try “do you like me?“, “are you happy?” or even “I love you” in the target language. The responses may be enlightening!

Translation station

As a side note, it may seem obvious, but don’t forget that Voice Assistant apps also offer direct translation capabilities. Learning the phrases for how do you say X in … and translate X into Y turn your phone into a quick dictionary tool. The catch: it might not be available in your target-native language pair (as is the case with Norwegian-English, unfortunately).

When Siri cannot translate.

“Hey Siri, how do you say ‘translate’ in English?” “I cannot translate from that language yet, but I can search for it on the Internet.”

Cross-language fail

As fun as this language learning technique is, it is not trouble-free. In particular, there are problems when languages cross over in our multilingual lives. For instance, you may need to accustom yourself to saying the names of family and friends phonetically, as if they were target language words. Otherwise, asking Norwegian Siri to call Aisling is going to result in a very blank digital stare.

Messaging functionality is also compromised due to this cross-language fail. I instructed Siri – in Norwegian – to send a text to a friend, then dictated the text in English. Predictably (easy to say now!), Siri tried to make sense of my message as Norwegian. I now have no idea what it was originally meant to say, but it caused a great deal of confusion at the other end!

A garbled text message from my Voice Assistant

What happens when your Norwegian Voice Assistant tries to send a text in English…

One-track language

The fact is that it is quite inconvenient to switch your Voice Assistant language settings all the time. So, if you want to take advantage of this technique, you will have to accept that certain things like text and calendar functions will be hampered – if not rendered completely impossible – while you are in learning mode.

Similarly, it is only practical to do this in one language at a time. In an ideal mobile world, I could speak all my languages to Siri and it would intelligently recognise and respond in the appropriate language. Alas, we are not quite there yet.

If you work around these stumbling blocks, you can eke a great deal of useful language practice from switching your Voice Assistant language. In fact, I’ve grown rather fond of mine; I might just leave it switched to Norwegian for the foreseeable!

At the heart of it is this: using a Voice Assistant in your foreign language is, quite simply, good fun. It is a moment of show-offy, giddy pride when family and friends hear me address Siri in a foreign language, for example. It is a badge of honour, a little show of skill that can boost motivation. And that is certainly worth the effort.

Amazon Echo Dot - Alexa for Language Learning

Alexa: Your Personal, Digital Native Speaker

It’s a language learning ‘secret’ that isn’t so secret any more: changing the language setting on your smart devices is a brilliant way to create a personalised immersion environment without going abroad. And the recent explosion of artificially intelligent digital assistant devices is taking this one step further. Voice-activated gadgets, like Amazon’s Alexa, place a (robotic) native speaker right in the centre of your home.

Swayed by the temptingly low price on the entry-level Amazon Dot, I’ve been getting to know Alexa for the past few months. First off, it’s a cliché, but this is definitely the kind of gadget you ‘never knew you needed’. After eyeing the unit with some cynicism for the first few weeks, soon I was constantly asking it to play music, convert currencies and measurements, tell me the weather forecast or simply the time. It’s both easy and fun, and gives you that sense of the future is now!

You digital language assistant

But it’s not just about voice-activating mundane, daily tasks. Ever alert to new learning opportunities, changing Alexa’s language settings was top of the list of experiments to try. And it works a treat, especially for pronunciation; suddenly, I was having to focus intently on expressing my commands in a nice, clear German accent so that Alexa could understand. (Incidentally, I’ve also found switching the language of Apple’s assistant Siri has these great pronunciation drill benefits!)

Interacting is as simple as asking a question like “”Alexa, was sind die Nachrichten?” (Alexa, what’s the news?) or “Alexa, wie ist das Wetter heute?” (Alexa, what’s the weather like today?). For more capabilities – including lots of silly (but briefly entertaining) games – there are hundreds of extra installable skills on Amazon. A useful hit list of the most useful can be found here.

The only snag with Alexa is that it is currently only available in English or German. Great news for Germanists, who won’t feel underrepresented in the language learning world for a change; but a pretty large black hole for everyone else.

Skilling up Alexa as language tutor

However, all is not lost. Users can still download Alexa Skills from Amazon, which augment the device’s capabilities. Already there are a good number of language learning skills, although they vary greatly in quality. It’s clearly early days for the device in terms of educational skills, but the start is promising.

A simple search on Learn Spanish or similar will yield plenty of results for you to try out. Here are a couple of links for the more mainstream languages:

Feedback ranges from decent right down to downright terrible on some of the skills available. However, the facility to give feedback on Amazon is a route for users to shape and improve Alexa as a language learning tool. Try new skills out, and write an honest review for each one – your thoughts will help developers to tweak and adapt Alexa skills for an incrementally better experience.

Watch this space

In summary, Alexa is an excellent investment for Germanists, but hit and miss for students of other languages – at least for the time being. There is a sizeable clamour around Spanish support on Amazon’s developer space, with pressure for other languages too. It would only seem a matter of time before she becomes more than just bilingual.