Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I wish I had the funds and a curriculum expert on my side to build a language learning app with LLMs.

Part of my PhD thesis[1] was to study how robots (voice agents) can influence human language. The key component is a social connection. Back in 2017 I did that in the lab. But the research is pretty clear about it.

Also my own experience (trying to learn Arabic) is, that I only remember words/phrases which I picked up during social gathering (camping in the dessert).

The "perfect" learning app would work like how children learn: by interacting with their social surroundings. No need to learn the vocabulary or the alphabet at the beginning. The hard part is, to create a social interaction between the learner and the AI that evolves over time.

[1] https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/items/7da0e989-aa9f-4b92-86bd-92...



It's not quite as effective as a real social connection but the para-social connection you get from say listening to a podcast in the language you're learning does work too in my experience.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: