ChatGPT for Language Learning

ChatGPT for Language Learning- “Please compose a conversation in German and send it to me. A polyglot and a philosopher are having a conversation in this passage.”

This is a question that I posed not to a human being but rather to the artificial intelligence that goes by the name of ChatGPT.

ChatGPT for Language Learning

The end product (which can be seen below) was fairly spectacular; it was a brief talk that focused mostly on acquiring new languages but also veered off into philosophical territory at points (e.g. “It seems to me that there are some fundamental truths that are present in all languages, and that learning languages can help us better understand them”). Another point to consider is that out of the total of 28 lines said in german throughout the discussion, only two of them were judged to be unnatural by a native speaker. Pretty bad, considering it only covers a somewhat obscure language!

Because of this, it got me thinking: might ChatGPT be a helpful tool for people learning other languages? I made the decision to try out many different use cases.

Grammar Explanations (2/5 ratings)

I wanted to know how the ergative case works, so I requested ChatGPT to “explain it to me like I’m five.” The end product was an explanation of the ergative written in language that was rather challenging and lacked examples that may have helped with comprehension. I had the suspicion that the algorithm didn’t comprehend “explain like I’m five,” so I rephrased the query to read as follows: “Explain the ergative situation to me in very basic English and with examples.” The outcome did not live up to expectations:

When I asked it to describe the usage of the german term “inae,” it discriminated between numerous scenarios that could all be translated as “but.” But, it did not mention a single example in which the word does not link two sentences, which is the use that I find difficult to understand.

ChatGPT says:

I was concerned that asking it to explain German may be too much to ask, so I asked it to explain the term “doch” in German instead. There is a significant amount of information available online that defines this term. ChatGPT says:

This is extremely unsatisfying since it does not handle the most typical use case, which is when someone incorrectly anticipates a negative response and should have responded with “Doch” rather than “Ja.” (“Are you sure you won’t be here tonight?” “Doch!”)

I am only able to award this product two out of five stars because, despite the fact that the explanations do not include any errors, I am unable to conceive of a scenario in which students would really choose these explanations over others that are available elsewhere on the internet.

Ideas for More Vocabulary (one out of five stars)

Next, I discovered that ChatGPT can recommend recipes and other similar activities, and this led me to believe that it would also be able to suggest vocabulary to learn in addition to the word lists that are often given for things like furniture and related topics. I tried several different phrasings in order to get it to suggest Italian vocabulary that would be helpful when reading news articles on Ukraine, German vocabulary to pre-learn for the movie “Die Feuerzangenbowle,” and Latin vocabulary that is particularly frequent in “De bello gallico.” I was successful in getting it to suggest Italian vocabulary that would be useful when reading news articles on Ukraine.

Even though it had most likely been fed the entire text of “De bello gallico” and other Latin texts. ChatGPT was unable to assist in any way with news vocabulary, and it was clearly grasping at straws when it came to the other two categories, despite the fact that it was able to perform frequency analysis and could have done so.

Vocabulary Selection from ChatGPT

When it comes to selecting vocabulary to learn for a particular purpose or situation. You would do much better to ask someone who has dealt with this situation in the past. Or you could refer to actual vocabulary frequency lists that have been compiled by computers. They cannot interact in natural language but are better at vocabulary analysis. In a nutshell, you would choose vocabulary to learn for a particular purpose. Or situation much more effectively by asking someone who has dealt with this situation in the past.

Corrections (three out of five stars)

I gave it two distinct short pieces to correct: one in Croatian (which is attached), and one in Spanish. Both of these texts were produced by me when I was just starting out in both languages. And I had previously gotten corrections for them from an experienced instructor. The findings were comparable: the algorithm was successful in correcting a large number of beginning errors. But it also failed to notice another mistake and, in the case of Croatian, it created a new problem. As I was writing in Spanish. I was shocked to see that it would sometimes rewrite a whole half of a sentence. Here is the comparison:

Also noteworthy: this artificial “intelligence” has a very patchy understanding of what it just did. e.g. it claims to have corrected “vengo” to “vengo” and it does not list several of the other corrections it made.

I could still see learners using this function if they don’t have access to a native speaker. Who could correct them, as long as they verify the corrections themselves? In my case, for example, I could use ChatGPT to correct the majority of my case errors in Croatian.

Creation of Materials (4/5)

This is what prompted my exploration. ChatGPT’s ability to imagine a dialogue between a polyglot and a philosopher in Croatian. With only two mistakes. Similarly one can request it to invent a dialogue or short story in almost any language – a heady thought!

The downside is the possibility of mistakes and also the lack of audio for these dialogues. So for my current Russian project, I will still work my way through LanguageCrush Conversations. 100 dialogues for intermediate learners with native speaker audio. Available also in other languages – I have no need for ChatGPT to generate dialogues.

ChatGPT for language learners

I believe that in most cases, learners will want to use materials developed by qualified teachers. Materials for native speakers if only to ensure that they are not learning mistakes. However, if materials developed by teachers are too boring or scarce. Materials for native speakers are too advanced. ChatGPT may fill a gap by creating an unlimited number of target-language dialogues. Or short texts tailored to the learner’s interests. This is the most useful application I have found of ChatGPT for language learners.

Good luck with your studies!

You may also like this ChatGPT for Education, ChatGPT and Education

Leave a Comment