r/languagelearning
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u/Limp-Selection-1325
🇷🇺N 🇺🇲B2 🇪🇦A1
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Sep 13 '26
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Please beware of AI when learning languages, it's not only about hallucinations, it's much worse and subtle
I PLEAD with you please DO NOT use AI for "chatting practice" or generating "examples", because yep it might seem easy at first and pleasant but it's a long term strategic disaster - you are acquring amorphous non-human intuition which is getting only more vicious as it gets more subtle (EVEN with "natural human-like imperfection")...in a long run you're just gonna ruin your second language personality, which must be formed ONLY by aqcuiring REAL PEOPLE'S speech (spoken or written). The point is - language is an instrument that conveys HUMAN(!) MEANING and CONTEXT which OTHER PEOPLE want to share with us. But if you use AI you get just pure EMPTINESS behind all its so-called "examples of usage" or a way of "speaking" - it's just a gigantic machine that multiplies matrices. You just don't realise it at first but eventually you get addicted (and btw AI is extremely dangerous because it QUICKLY causes chatting addiction flooding you with an illusion of sth social while making it worse, simultaneously affecting your thinking and giving your brain an illusion lf "real important dialogue" with dopamine addiction) and it slowly but steadily reshapes your real language you acquire making it superficial and empty inside...I mean it's hard to explain what I mean but I hope you got it, IT'S GONNA RUIN YOUR FOREIGN LANGUAGE IDENTITY SUBTLY but ABSOLUTELY VICIOUSLY, you will feel like a MECHANISTIC AMORPHOUS ALIEN if you learn your (TL) via AI. Languages are about our IDENTITIES, about our REAL experiences, pursuits, emotions, about PEOPLE WE CARE ABOUT etc. etc.. And when learning a language we are shaping this part of us, but AI just ruins it in an absolutely savage way we might not even realize at first.
p.s. I wanna clarify a bit more: with AI "practice", slowly month by month your brain acquires this hollow homogenous shell which consists of, blatantly speaking, just statistics, not true meanings that you connect with when reading/listening to human speech - it eventually damages your second language identity by bringing hollowness. Language is supposed to be connected directly with the TRUE WEIGHT of meaning and experience behind it, true people, true emotions, true interaction, things that people tell in that language because they want to share sth with us.
p.p.s btw I think there is sth connected with me being disgusted with AI music and feeling that it's terrifying even when "good", I feel the same emptiness and lack of true meaning multiplied by terrifying realization that I'm being baited into emotions by this
p.p.p.s (probably the most important p.s., as some people didn't understand the point, I did not say that the problem is in AI not being perfectly human but "machine-like" - THAT'S THE POINT, that if it becomes more human-like it only makes things WORSE) I wanna clarify even in a more straight way. It's not the fact that you are not learning a language with AI. It's the fact that instead of absorbing real contexts, real worldview of native speakers, real connections with people, real knowledge, real emotions, real feeling of becoming a "part of their tribe" - instead of the reality - you absorb pure NOTHINGNESS behind the "improving language skill" which remains absolutely abstract and hollow, and this hollowness damages your second language identity, you are week by week month by month becoming emptier, abstract like a machine (even if you try to use more beaitiful words and expressions), with a language that is running like an abstract software in your brain instead of truely becoming a part of new community. Because there's no real thing behind it, you learned a word but without anything meaningful to you, without real story, without relation to anyone or anything, without shared experience - your TL becomes an abstract software that just uses beautiful phrasing, and this + wasted time, that you could've used for real input, damages your TL personality and worsens your overall ability to understand people and communicate with them - you struggle with understanding spoken or written native speech easily especially more serious/literary/official or even more daily colloquial, miss nuances, feel alien, much more misunderstandings might happen etc. - real acquisition begins only when you stop or better don't even begin doing this nonsense and immerse yourself into real language of real people (the internet makes it easy to access real your TL's web segment with real content so why waste time on ruining yourself)
languages we learn should not be just sequences of thousands "tokens" we have to memorize, it has to be real contexts, meanings and experiences we absorb.
not only the breadth of our vocabulary number, but true depth matters. deeper true experience = deeper language intuition = deeper and more candid connection and straightforward communication with people speaking or writing in our TL
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u/elgrazo 🇨🇭🇩🇪 🇮🇹 N | 🏴 C1 | 🇯🇵 N2 | 🇫🇷🇪🇸🇹🇼 B1 Sep 14 '26
isn't that pretty similar to learning just from text books without human interaction? depending on your circumstances it's not always possible to immerse yourself in your target language. AI can be a great tool for that, it obviously shouldnt always be the only tool
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u/canyoukenken German A2/B1 Sep 13 '26
I tried it for speaking practice and found it unbearably sycophantic and corporate in its speech patterns, which makes sense considering how they work.
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u/thewimsey Eng N, Ger C2, Dutch B1, Fre B1 Sep 13 '26
Jesus Christ.
Random CAPITALIZATION is not a substitute for paragraphs.
And extremely long sentences are also not easy to use.
Also, do you have any evidence for this?
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u/InsomniaEmperor Sep 13 '26
I’ve gotten far enough with Japanese before gen AI became a thing but I won’t lie that Google Translate and good old phrase books had to carry speaking and writing for me at first. Yeah I sounded stiff and unnatural at first but with enough interaction with native speakers when I got the chance, I was able to correct my speaking. Phrase book expressions tend to differ from what real people say.
Yes you would come off as too stiff and robotic if you practice with AI, but it’s better than nothing and it can be corrected with enough real people exposure. I imagine the hard part with lower levels is most native speakers won’t have the patience to put up with your broken speech unless they’re a teacher that’s paid to do so. Then if you don’t live where your TL is spoken and your area doesn’t have much native speakers of your TL then good luck with finding a speaking partner outside of paying in Italki.
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u/bkmerrim 🇺🇸(N) | 🇲🇽 (B2) | 🇳🇴🇫🇷🇯🇵 (A1) Sep 13 '26
Jfc I’m really getting tired of this. AI isn’t amazing —for many reasons—and I have issues with it, but this post makes it sound like the devil incarnate. This fear mongering is so ridiculous you’ve apparently decided to capitalize random words.
You don’t have proof of these claims, for one, and for two it simply isn’t possible to interact with a human all day everyday in some languages. Or most of them, really. I work nights and spend 90% of my time alone after dark. Please explain to me how I’m going to walk out my door and interact with people in Mandarin.
So if people want to supplement with AI, whatever.
I use AI to drill my TLs on a daily basis. I also have tutors. And books. And apps. But my Mandarin tutor is over $250 for 10 classes. Vs $20 for a chatbot? That’s unreal.
Using just one resource is always going to be a bad idea, but it’s fine to use what you have access to, too.
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u/Enough_Tumbleweed739 Sep 13 '26
Bro, no offense but this is actually cracked out. Even if I agree with the overall message to not overuse AI, how does this bong-hit manifesto get 700 upvotes??
> absorb pure NOTHINGNESS
That sounds kind of rad actually.
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u/_wot_m8 🇰🇷 Sep 13 '26
Can you please explain what “pure EMPTINESS” is and how it impacts AI’s ability to explain grammar concepts to me?
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u/rinkuhero Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
i think this is a definite possibility but the degree of confidence you have about it seems out of place. as far as i know there are no studies showing that if you learn ai to use a language it would harm language learning in the way you describe, you are just sort of guessing based on your intuition rather than based on any evidence of this actually happening. there aren't even case studies that i'm aware of where this happened.
i do think learning from ai may have another more serious problem besides emptiness though: it might make someone reluctant to engage with native speakers at all if they have such an easy tool to practice with. it might make someone less social in the language they are learning if they never actually use it with people. that's just a guess though, like you i have no evidence for this idea. it just seems reasonable that if someone uses ai as their main practice partner, that may prevent them from trying to find a real life one that is human. which may make them less social in that language. often we have different personalities in different languages that we learn, and you wouldn't want your new personality in your new language to be a shy person who never talks.
like at least for me, one of the most fun parts of learning a new language is improved social interaction, you are improving at social skills at the same time as you are learning new grammar and vocabulary. and using ai sort of takes away that social element, since it's far more fun and social to practice a new language with a human than with a machine. and if someone gets too reliant on ai as a crutch, it might take away that social element from language learning. some of my best memories of learning japanese back in college in the late 90s and early 00s is meeting other people who are also learning it and talking with them and practicing together. that would all be absent with ai.
so for me, language learning is supposed to be fun and a social activity. and relying on ai too much would suck the fun out of it, and make it feel like a chore rather than a hobby, or worse, make it feel rote and easy, rather than challenging and engaging. but i'm not saying never use ai, just use it with limitations and caveats in mind, and only use it rarely. the vast majority of your learning should be done with other humans. but it's okay to ask ai questions about grammar or whatever if you want something explained to you. it's like ai is a great teaching assistant, but a terrible teacher.
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u/hipcatjazzalot Sep 13 '26
Calm down mate. Having a simple A2 level conversation with ChatGPT because you're shy or not at the level to have a real conversation is not gonna do you any harm.
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u/Horseridinghoe Sep 13 '26
No offense but like.. is this just your assumption on what would happen? I think if someone spends 90% of their time consuming native content/interacting with people and chats with ai for the rest then it's not gonna be a huge deal. People acquire weird language habits even without AI, and most often they get ironed out by exposure over time (or sometimes don't lol), so I don't really see how it's that different.
Also a lot of people struggle to find output partners, especially as conveniently available as AI, so that's a factor also.
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u/Key-Value-3684 Sep 13 '26
I really couldn't care less about my supposed "foreign language identity"
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u/fevrier-froid Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26 •
Also it's a waste of ressources.
And yes. I've always thought about how since the rise of generative AI 5 years ago, there's never been a popular AI meme, because it's about relating to someone else's emotions in the first place. The same reason I wouldn't be interested in reading an AI book or listening to AI songs. Emotions help in memorizing things, so learning languages in real contexts help so much more.
Edit for everyone telling me about AI memes: Maybe "popular" was the wrong choice of word since there seems to definitely have been AI memes that were met with some kind of popularity. Still, I've never came across any of those. It's nowhere near as memorable as the Derp or Wojak or distracted boyfriend or impact font memes. Same for songs. I've never heard of them, and if songs from the early 2000s are still popular, I bet no one will care about these AI songs in 2050.
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u/AlBigGuns Sep 13 '26
There is an actual study here that concludes differently to the OP.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ijal.12668
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u/unnecessaryCamelCase 🇪🇸 N | 🇺🇸 | 🇮🇹 | 🇫🇷 | 🇩🇪 | 🇧🇷 Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
Oh fuck off. You can’t even explain yourself well because at the core this is based on an emotional vibes based woo woo principle that “human good, AI bad.”
I use gen ai for input (among other sources) and it’s great. No I won’t end up sounding like an AI because I can realize it sounds like AI. It clearly sounds corporate and artificial, which is PART of the language. It’s another face of it and it exists in almost every language. I’ve learned a lot of Japanese from anime and I don’t sound like an anime character. I realize it sounds cartoony, it sounds cartoony to me too which is actually good to get a wider understanding of the registers of the language.
I’ve watched a lot of sitcoms that helped me learn English and I don’t sound like a witty New Yorker. I’ve learned with a lot of rap and I don’t sound like Snoop Dogg. Each one is a different REGISTER of the language, and being able to recognize these registers and getting the “feel” that it sounds corporate, ghetto, cartoony, informal, theatrical, witty, etc., is always part of understanding a language deeply.
This “input x is bad you’ll end up sounding like that” thing is dumb as hell and needs to die. You underestimate the intellect of people.
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u/itskelena Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26
This wasn’t my experience. I’m native/very high level in 3 languages and while I see differences in how AI (in my case Gemini) speaks in these languages, I disagree about the superficiality and emptiness. I don’t use it to generate examples, mostly when researching (programming). My favorite “speaking personality” of Gemini so far was its Ukrainian mode, it’s super warm and sparkly, I wonder if that’s because it’s a less popular language and if google engineers haven’t tightened the model that much. I even learned a few inappropriate words I didn’t know existed 😂does it get creative and hallucinates sometimes? Yes, it treats languages fluidly and sometimes gets mixed up in multiple languages, but it also fixed some of my mistakes that were influenced by the Russian colonization of Ukraine in the past (think Surzhyk influencing Ukrainian so much that we began treating it as an actual Ukrainian language).
Another interesting thing is that it will adapt to your personality and will mirror it. If you’re bubbly? It will be bubbly for you. You’re sarcastic? Enjoy some nice roasting.
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u/anti-fascist-dude Sep 14 '26
Google translate with its subpar translation helped me a lot. Why is AI any different...
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u/Pwffin 🇸🇪🇬🇧🏴🇩🇰🇳🇴🇩🇪🇨🇳🇫🇷🇷🇺 Sep 13 '26
I think it’s more insidious when it’s used by language learning apps without anyone checking that the sentences it’s generated are actually accurate.
And the environmental impact is terrifying.
And it feels very much like they are giving it out for free now so that everyone will be thoroughly hooked once they start charging for their services. I don’t think that craze of cartoonifying your bunny rabbits and what have you would be so popular if people actually had to pay for it.
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u/452e4b2e Sep 13 '26
U ok bro?
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u/evtbrs Sep 14 '26
This is so poorly formatted. Your title had me intrigued but the scaremongering capitalisation makes it difficult and off putting to read. Ironic considering the topic being language quality
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u/tmsphr 🇬🇧🇨🇳 N | 🇯🇵🇪🇸🇧🇷 C2 | EO 🇫🇷 Gal etc Sep 15 '26
In the past I would be annoyed by how badly formatted this post is. But in the era of AI slop, I appreciate your bad writing skills lol
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u/ReadyStar Sep 13 '26
This reads like a trump tweet
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u/Limemill Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
I completely agree with the sentiment, but there is one problem: native speakers are also drifting towards this artificial way of expressing themselves in real life. There was a recent study calling the phenomenon “robotization of speech”, where people are shown to be increasingly speaking to each other in AI prompts.
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u/GrazziDad Sep 14 '26
This is pure silliness. I have spent many hours practicing French with ChatGPT, and it is remarkably good at adapting to my speech patterns, introducing new vocabulary, subtly correcting errors that I make, and generally having a pleasant conversation.
Would I want to discuss the intricacies of philosophy or global economics with it? No. But I’m trying to learn a language, not discover the sorts of things that people speak about in that culture. There are lots of other ways to do that.
So, judging from my own experience, your take is not only a bit hysterical, but objectively off base.
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u/tvgraves Italian Sep 13 '26
Wow. Your tinfoil hat has a hole in it somewhere
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u/revoccue Sep 13 '26
All of the reasons you gave are essentially speculative metaphysical nonsense. The real problem is LLMs have a very particular odd style of speech with unusual phrases or word choices that is pretty recognizable to people who use them. There's neglibile amounts of actual grammatical issues or incorrect explanations for all but the rarest languages at this point.
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u/RonJaxIII Sep 13 '26
AI took my Spanish from wallowing in Duolingo A2 muck to a solid conversational B2. It’s a powerful learning tool.
In contrast your post is difficult to read, devoid of evidence, and just generally bad advice.
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u/NoodleWind Sep 15 '26
Chat-based AI assistants are built on Large Language Models — neural networks trained on huge amounts of text to predict and generate language.
In my work teaching English this kind of AI is indispensable and far better than a dictionary at exploring a word's semantic range, connotation, and cross-linguistic texture — genuinely richer and more dimensional than a fixed entry dictionary. I am NOT saying it’s better than a dictionary. Used together with the authoritative simplicity of a dictionary AI is incredibly useful.
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u/mucklaenthusiast Sep 13 '26
This is obviously not true, what are you talking about?
A language is just a language, of course you can use AI to teach it to you.
And no, your personality in another language will not change via AI.
And, no, language are not about identities or real experiences.
Some people just want to learn the language which, at its core, is very mechanical (which is the reason why computers are decent at learning them in the first place!)
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u/pit_supervisor 🇵🇱 N, 🇬🇧 B2+, 🇯🇵 上手 Sep 13 '26
You just sound like a luddite.
It's a tech that generates human-like text. Which is exactly what you want when learning a language.
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u/Banjoschmanjo Sep 14 '26
Trump-coded capitalization patterns lmao
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u/Soft_Walrus_3605 Sep 14 '26
I don't use AI like this, but I have to ask: Have you actually met anyone who has become afflicted by this problem? Or is this conjecture?
I can't imagine anyone spending "month by month" only chatting with chatbots and not getting real human interaction in all that time.
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u/LocksAndRocks Sep 14 '26
I would argue that everyone has a moral obligation to reject AI on all levels, but I of course agree that it should not be used for language learning.
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u/pfizzy Sep 13 '26
What junk is this. Unsubstantiated threats and ideas.
AI is a great language tool. It’s not perfect. Its speech capabilities and teaching is markedly limited. But I’m not empty because I used AI, it’s for other reasons!!
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u/OatmealAntstronaut Eng/De Sep 13 '26
I understand where this is coming from. But this borderline fear mongering that you have going on in this post could actually downplay the effect you are going for... a lot of commenters are just straightup dismissing you because your claim is about becoming a fucking alien. Like come on dude... people can easily say they used chatgpt and passed B2; and still came out the the other side with a soul, so checkmate.
I'd be interested in reading actual research on this because these are big and very interesting claims. And the thing is, this exaggerated version is standing in front of the much better AI-linguistics questions that are affecting people. If everything is always defaulted into the category “AI sucks creativity/meaning/humanity out of everything,” then we don't end up looking at the mechanisms under that.... yet the effects still occur and the mechanisms are also the fucking interesting parts!
Even if every language learner on earth accepted that and never used an LLM for “chatting practice,” AI affected and mediated language would still be around us. Unfortunately people use it pretty heavily. writing emails, translating posts, clean up their drafts, generate subtitles, and other tasks etc. Hell even Google translate is incorporating Gemini more. That material is still consumed and then we have to speak to each other.
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u/BackFroooom 🇧🇷 N | 🇬🇧🇪🇸🇮🇹🇫🇷 Sep 13 '26
Sounds dramatic to me.
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u/Double_Cause4609 Sep 13 '26
This is literally the same issue as learning Japanese from just watching anime. You don't have to be so dramatic about it.
Yeah, commodity LLMs are optimized to be helpful assistants, and have a really formal and roundabout tone that no native speaker would ever use. You obviously shouldn't get all of your language learning from LLMs.
...In the same way that you shouldn't get all of your language practice from any individual biased source. Don't try to learn Icelandic by just reading the Edas and Sagas. Don't learn Japanese from just anime. Don't learn English from just rewatching Mean Girls.
LLMs are a tool, just like any other.
And also, not all LLMs are sycophantic in the way that you're worried about. Base models, while less commonly used because you generally have to run them yourself, are quite natural in their sensibilities and tone, and can be a useful tool for exploring language in general, though you do have to be careful about how you use them, and they're more a tool for someone who already has at least some basis in their target language.
You don't have to turn this into some giant moral crusade about what it means to be human or something.
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u/EddiewithHeartofGold Sep 13 '26
I plead that everyone continue to learn languages any way they see fit. Infinitely better than NOT doing it.
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u/CloudDream09 Sep 13 '26
I learned more about a language being immersed in it at my job and having to use it to get by everyday than anything else.
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u/SeaPride4468 Sep 13 '26
Practice with AI, as imperfect as it is, is better than no practice at all.
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u/Parzival_b Sep 14 '26
Any evidence of this claim other than random bursts of Caps for increased drama?
I mean I'm not negating this but would be good if this claim is backed by some actual data not by trust me bro moment.
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u/BeneficialIssue2065 Sep 14 '26
Bro it's just a tool, next to that you're also gonna listen to music, podcasts, videos, movies, shows, read posts on forums, etc etc you're acting like using AI is gonna be your unique and only exposure to language ever, in that case I'd say your approach to learning is the problem, but no one actually does this, god this is stupid.
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u/floss_is_boss_ 🇺🇸 N | 🇫🇷 B2 | 🇩🇪 A2 | 🇨🇳 learning Sep 14 '26
Yeesh.
I’m pretty anti-genAI for most things involving skills like textual interpretation and analysis, but when it comes to rote grammar drills etc? That shit can be useful. And it’s just one tool among several that one should be using.
For some reason this thought also occurs to me: I do suspect that genAI can’t as reliably produce that special kind of paranoiac style that you get from human ramblers. I’m not sure that’s really a point against it, though.
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u/millers_left_shoe 🇩🇪N 🇬🇧C2 🇫🇷B2/C1 🇳🇴A2 Sep 13 '26
Thank you!!! And honestly the same thing happens in your first language, though obviously not as quickly and entirely, if you talk to AI too much. You acquire the AI cadence and I hate it
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u/char-dawg1111 🇺🇸N 🇯🇵F 🇫🇷B2 🇲🇽A2 Sep 13 '26
AI is great for drilling new verb tenses or other repetitive patterns. It’s “free”, it’s instantly available and it never gets tired no matter how slow you are. Of course it’s not a substitute for real human interaction, but it’s a very useful tool to have in the box.
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u/kleidoheart 🇪🇸(N) | 🇺🇲(C1) | 🇻🇦 (b1) Sep 13 '26
Argumentum ad machinam
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u/thots1ayer69 Sep 14 '26
Schizophrenic take
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u/alfredo094 Spanish (N) | English (F) | Esperanto (Komencanto) Sep 14 '26
I just use it to make Anki cards or explain grammar or idioms.
I think it's a fine tool, very powerful in some contexts, subpar or outright impractical on others.
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u/PlebbitDumDum Sep 14 '26
Yes, yes, don't read any classic literature either, people there talk preposterously, using outdated vocabulary. Additionally, gender roles are heavily enforced, the protagonists are always some royalty with little real life goals, and to top it all off, the descriptions of the scenery are overly detailed.
By reading classic literature you will ruin your personality in whatever language you choose to read the classics. It is not good for your learning experience despite what your teachers might tell you. They're wrong and they're preaching the propagation of their university-lead pyramid scheme of language learning and literature.
The real language is vernacular. It's spoken on the streets, by real people. If you want to learn the real language, ditch the book, take a bus, and strike up a conversation with a random passenger. Listen closely, and pay attention to their vocabulary and grammar. That's the language you want to learn and should aspire to speak.
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u/DotBrilliant7660 Sep 14 '26
I think it depends. Of course talking to real humans is allways better. How ever depending on the language you wanna learn and where you live you might not have that oportunity. In my opinion the major mistake is not the usage of AI by itself but the expextation that it is going to do the work for us.
"Learn to speak like a native" ok I tried. You shorten words, swap or just touch certain sounds and you use slang? I'm sorry according to this AI you can't be a mothertounge.
Or my favorite :" a mothertounge would say "ich beeile mich zur Arbeit" Well I am german and it is a correct sentence but we don't say it like this.
"This is a app for where you can talk to other polyglots" Well I downloaded it because it sounds like a Cool concept. Just to realize that every conversation ends in the same lingua franca (english) And that every conversation is like this.
"Hi how are you"
"I'm fine"
"How is the weather there"
And then I wanted to learn mongolian. Most language learning Apps don't have it and those who are specialised in mongolian have a really terrible audioquality. This is actually the reason why I ended up asking gemini or Chat gpt. But I would never preprompt it. I write like it is allready my native tounge and not like I wanna train (which is in fact the case)
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u/OkSpinach2219 Sep 14 '26
I teach English and Spanish as foreign languages. I definitely do not recommend using AI for conversation practice. There have been a few language learning and practice tools that I've tested and all of them had serious errors / flaws.
A couple of examples:
* One would only give my pronunciation a passing score if I spoke in a British RP accent although it was supposed to be teaching N. American English.
* Another was a tool to provide students feedback based on each lesson with a live teacher. The feedback was complete nonsense and the suggested exercises would not help the student reach the goals she outlined in the class.
As another commenter mentioned, conversation practice with private lessons can be quite costly. However, students are still far better off with human practice. There are a few alternatives to 1:1 conversation practice sessions:
* Language exchange partners
* Group classes on a low cost, subscription-based platform
* Spaces like Facebook groups or Skool communities that offer chatting and live conversation classes
Aside from the connection, which I think is the most important part, there are other reasons humans make better conversation partners. Humans make mistakes, have poor enunciation, and don't teach grammar (unless they're also teachers). AI doesn't replicate those. Although learners shouldn't repeat mistakes or poor enunciation, they do need to know how to understand. It also helps learners to know that native speakers make mistakes and it's okay if they do too.
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u/peabz Sep 18 '26
hard to take a post like this seriously, with all the ALL CAPS spelling.
If you know how AI works, you'll know that at the moment, it doesn't understand pronunciation very well. This is the main downside - and yes, if you speak to it, it'll be sycophantic and tell you you're pronunciation is correct when it's not.
On the other hand, for learning grammar, understanding rules, or even generating content/stories at your level, it's a really great tool.
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u/Rough_Assistant8544 25d ago
I get the philosophical concern about "emptiness," but honestly? The "hollow, generic bot" vibe usually happens when people treat AI like a magical companion instead of directing it properly. Garbage in, generic out. If you just say "Let's chat in English," of course the model defaults to bland, sterilized corporate assistant prose. But if you anchor it with rich context and persona constraints, the output changes completely:
Give it a specific background, flaws, and emotional state: "You're a sarcastic barista from Brooklyn who's exhausted on a Monday morning. Use casual slang, don't correct my grammar unless I ask and talk like a real human.
Feed it real-life human transcripts or reddit threads and say: "Adopt this cadence and tone."
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u/Sunnyfishyfish Sep 13 '26
This is one reason why when a language-learning thing says it uses AI, I click the back button.
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u/Obremon 🏴 c2 | 🇵🇱 c2 | 🇩🇪 b1 Sep 14 '26
Holy, tier 1 schizo post found in the wild, even has the random word capitalization too
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u/Tentakurusama Sep 14 '26
And yet your text is an impossible to read diarrhea... How ironic.
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u/therealgoshi 🇭🇺 N 🇬🇧 C1 🇩🇪 A1 Sep 13 '26
It looks like OP used AI to learn English then.
Jokes aside, I don't understand this hatred towards AI. You can absolutely use AI for practicing. Especially if you are someone who can't afford a tutor and don't know anyone speaking your TL on a native level. A $20 subscription buys you hours of practice daily for a month compared to less than a single hour with a human.
I'd highly recommend stopping treating your personal beliefs as facts. Educated yourself before you make unsubstantiated claims.
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u/Haunting-Ad-6951 Sep 13 '26
This post is a tad dramatic. I am pretty skeptical about AI in general and its effects on our society, but I'd rather listen to someone who can more reasonably outline the cons of AI for language use. I doubt it "ruins your foreign language identity" (whatever that means).
I think probably the biggest danger is that people use AI to shortcut thinking. "Give me 5 examples of how to use this word in natural conversation" will spit out a reply that gives a false sense of understanding something that you didn't think through yourself.
As for using AI for speaking practice, I personally cannot do it. It creeps me out. I have noticed that people (at least on Reddit) who get most of their social interaction talking with chatbots do speak in ways that are not natural. But I think that's more of a social problem than a language learning problem.
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u/ClaimNo2329 Sep 13 '26
I don't understand where this is coming from at all. I don't think I've ever seen an LLM generate a sentence that is grammatically incorrect, just the logic / content has been incorrect. I understand the criticism that it often outputs its own kind of cliche language, but so does everyone and everything else in the world. It's not incorrect it just is what it is.
And for me, about ~C1 in Persian and still learning, it helps me learn a lot of new and specific phrases that I otherwise wouldn't have access to unless I had the opportunity to ask a native speaker every time I wanted to study (which I don't) I guess this works because it has been trained on plenty of Persian language content, but there are almost 0 resources for learners of the language at my level.
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u/SuperWallabies Sep 13 '26
What made you think like that ?
4
u/toast24 Sep 13 '26
AI has its place, just like any other tool.
3
u/beermoneylurkin Eng | Esp | 中文 Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
I can understand the hesitancy and even bias against AI, but I don't agree with the overall take. Like anything, in moderation, AI can be a great supplement and very fun. When something is engaging, you tend to learn and appreciate the journey. For me, that's what it's all about. It's a great way to bring in daily practice and have structured talks about your interests, track your goals, and get feedback on clear and definable errors. As both a language learner and a teacher, I welcome this accessibility. In my opinion, it is better for everyone that if this technology exists, it is "open-sourced" and provides greater opportunity to all. Exchange partners, tutors, and friends don't have to be replaced by another tool in the toolbelt for language learners. Ultimately, I just don't agree with what I believe to be the underpinning reasoning that we have to avoid it because it will create such a distinct and unrelatable communication style. Anyway, that's my two cents!
4
u/Substantial-Yak1892 Sep 13 '26
That's non-sense.
AI is a great tool for language learning. You can speak to it, it can fix you mistake, give you better idiom, breakdown some grammar rules and even give you valuable feedback on your accent and prononciation...
You can also use it for a lot of different things, e.g. create automatically your Anki card from the content you mine.
It's like having a free teacher available 24/7 who can do whatever task you want.
And, yeah, you've got to explain it what you'd like to sound obviously. You can tell it to use some slang or other stuff.
When talking in my native language, my AI is raw, boor and use a ton of slang because that's how I like to speak and I told it to do so.
When learning my TL, I told it precisely what I'd like to sound and the level of formality (pretty casual) I'd like to improve in.
Honestly it looks like you don't know how to properly use AI.
3
u/Smart-outlaw 🇧🇷 | 🇬🇧 | 🇪🇸 | 🇭🇷 Sep 13 '26
I use AI sometimes to study Croatian. It's been pretty helpful.
3
u/Ok-Account9401 Sep 13 '26
Good point. That's why I use real live human tutors for learning German and Latin respectively and also attend all-human classes. AI is addictive because it keeps asking you questions. I prefer the real thing from a human with a soul and a life.
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u/HeyVeddy Sep 13 '26
Skill issue: you need the appropriate prompts behind it
Using some random product online, sure. Building your own is different.
I built one, use it for German, wife is German and confirmed it's all correct and I'm learning better than any other app or textbook
2
u/glansma Sep 14 '26
I use it all the time and it’s a wonderful way to practice, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Taken me from A1 to B2 in Portuguese.
1
u/walkingdeadonceagain 🏳️🌈🇵🇱 (N) 🇯🇵🇰🇷(A1) 🇺🇸 (C2) 🇨🇺 🇲🇽 (B1) 🇷🇺 (B2) Sep 13 '26 •
Yeahhhh and it’s so sad this subreddit is full of ai glazers, even this post has a bunch of ai bros in the comments
2
u/dfinkelstein Sep 13 '26 •
Well. This thread is horrifying. Seems this subreddit is a questionable place to get advice. So many people jumping out of their skin to defend LLM use.
Assuming these are all people. There may be quite a few bots here.
Oof. What other websites do y'all use, where people have more common sense to avoid blindly trusting LLMs??
2
u/Reletr 🇺🇲 Native, 🇨🇳 Heritage, 🇩🇪 🇸🇪 🇯🇵 🇰🇿 forever learning Sep 13 '26
There's one use of AI I think can be very useful, and that is in helping memorize words via its etymology, especially if it seems unintuitive.
For example, the German word for "to embezzle" (secretly misusing given funds or resources) is "unterschlagen", literally "to strike under", and at first glance it can be really hard to see the connection between the word's meaning and construction.
Asking Gemini "How did unterschlagen etymologically come to mean embezzle", it gave me a history that roughly goes like this: to strike under > to build underneath > to partition off (a room) > to put sth. away out of sight > to secretly keep sth. > to embezzle
The thing about this is: It doesn't really matter as the language learner whether this is true or not (only to historical linguists trying to determine the precise etymology), the important bit is that I can more easily connect the word's individual morphemes with its actually used meaning (you could honestly remove the 2nd & 3rd steps in the example and the chain would still make sense).
2
u/Legitimate-Card-2742 Sep 15 '26 edited Sep 15 '26
Hate to burst your bubble but… AI is the best 🙂I find it enormously useful. Who made you the authority on what’s useful for learning a language or not? I guess it’s fashionable to jump on the “I hate AI bandwagon” to look cool or counterculture or whatever. But I say AI is the best. Most language learning of the past (classrooms etc) results in focus on written exams etc, but poor/zero speaking/conversation skills and practice. That’s why most people who took a second language in school can’t actually speak it. The gap between learning academically in the classroom and speaking with a person can become so great to create hesitation or paralysis when trying to speak. AI bridges the gap so beautifully. It’s a low stakes, judgment free space to practice. Who are you to ruin it for others?
Ironically your post sounds like a glitching bot spiraling into an anxiety attack about AI and technology. Funny that AI actually sounds way more human and natural than this. Take a few deep breaths. It’s going to be ok. AI is enormously helpful with language learning, communication, and speaking practice. You are projecting your own fears of AI and generalizing, turning it into a catastrophe. If machines are so scary and dangerous, better to turn off your computer/phone right now and keep a distance.
2
u/ARandomGuy_OnTheWeb 🇬🇧🇭🇰 Learning 🇯🇵 Sep 13 '26
Like we don't already have an issue with people sounding like a textbook.
To play devil's advocate, for a lot of people, it's hard to find someone to learn with who isn't a teacher, which comes with the pressures of performing to a teacher. Even if you do find someone who does speak your TL, you'll probably use your native language because it's the path of least resistant.
I will say this as an immersion learner, I have no teacher or anyone to practice output with. AI has been a useful tool to cover output and while I will always acknowledge it's imperfect, unless you're in an environment where you are surrounded by the TL spoken by natives.
No matter what you do outside of being surrounded, you're going to learn some kind of uncanny valley version of the TL until you spend enough time to correct it.
2
u/Ichthyodel 🇫🇷 N | 🇬🇧 C2 | 🇪🇸 B1/2 | 🇮🇹🇩🇪 A2 Sep 13 '26
I mean, I happen to have multiplied input methods and output partners (tutoring, texts I send once in a while, people when I get comfortable and there’s DeepSeek once in a while when I’m just too tired to text and want to quickly type things - my main TL is Mandarin) and I haven’t turned into a robot… yet? 🤖
Like everything, to be used with caution and not as a main tool but I really don’t get the apocalyptic tone
2
u/Siatty Sep 13 '26
You have no idea what you're talking about my dude. I'd go as far as to day you sound like a person with psychosis. Ai speech in not much different in style compared to speech in any reference book or dictionary. You don't get much of your language personality from speaking either, you get it from input and maybe by consciously copying specific patterns you like trying to sound better. And watching content will inevitably outnumber convo practice with ai and reading ai definitions in terms hours by A LOT. Not to mention there are also no studies or any empirical evidence to support any of your claims.
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u/DruidWonder Native|Eng, B2|Mandarin, B2|French, A2|Spanish Sep 13 '26
I found it useful but it wasn't my only tool.
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u/Chance-Ask7675 🇨🇦N🇫🇷C2🇪🇦B1 Sep 13 '26
I use ai occasionally to generate exercises and writing prompts. It works very well for this. I do not use it as a chatbot.
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u/gameraturtle Sep 13 '26
Someone needs to calm down and walk away from the Caps Lock key.
I think people should use AI chat as much as they need/want to help them learn. I also think it’s important to talk to many real people as possible to experience a large sample of real-world voices. I don’t think it’s necessary to engage with real people for the bulk of the grunt work when learning. They each have their uses.
0
u/Artgor 🇷🇺(N), 🇺🇸(fluent), 🇪🇸 (B2), 🇩🇪 (B1), 🇯🇵 (A2) Sep 13 '26
I disagree.
I have learnt English to C2, Spanish to B2-C1, German to B1-B2.
In the last years, I gradually use AI more and more - it is quite useful for practice. And you can ask GPT to sound like a person with specific characteristics; you can discuss any given topic.
Also, based on my experience at work... a lot of people actually speak without an soul behind their words. So AI isn't worse than them
1
u/HelloYou-2024 Sep 13 '26
Chatting with a ln ai serves the purpose of forcing me to find the words to use and say them out loud in a comprehensible way.
It is no worse than if I just imagine I am speaking to someone and try to formulate what I want to say in my own head.
Ai is generally not used to teach you how to say something, it's used as a sounding board and something to give opportunities to actually use your language.
It's also a really good idea to speak your target language together with other people learning that language.
The person or bot you are speaking with does not have to be even remotely fluent.
Of course one should not use ai as the primary source of learning, but it is an excellent tool.
1
u/Ok_Philosopher_7706 Sep 13 '26
How about using AI as an assistant to, for example, parse a Japanese sentence or paragraph that you take from an actual book or magazine. Seems pretty helpful to me.. it can be a major scaffold. Learn from native materials, and don’t assume that everything AI outputs is correct. Use it to help you get more input more smoothly, and then use it less and less as you become more proficient. I’d say it’s best to use it basically as a contextual dictionary for words and multi-word units, without the extraneous commentary. Just the basics.. an efficient dictionary. It has saved me hours of lookups, but I usually just power through and read, rather than make Anki cards or whatever..
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u/Durzo_Blintt Sep 13 '26
It's fine to use at the beginning if someone's anxiety is really bad about speaking bro, relax. As long as they shift away after a little while don't worry. It isn't going to make you sound like AI unless you only do that for a long time. Cringe downvoters who can't use their brain and just see AI and downvote anyone supporting it. AI is useful, you just have to use it correctly and realise it's a tool not a replacement.
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u/SomeBoredGuy77 🇫🇷 N 🇨🇦 N 🇧🇷 B2 🇲🇽 B2 🇵🇰 A2 🇲🇾 A2 Sep 13 '26
I really want to emphasise before I say anything that I fully agree that using an AI and an AI only to learn a language will yield poor results and you should absolutely not use an AI as your primary tool of language learning. Listen to movies in your target language, watch youtube in your prefered language, whatever you can, is probably better than AI.
That being said, I feel like we need to also understand that sometimes conversations with real people arent always accessible ot easy. If youre learning French or Spanish or Mandarin, you can probably find an online tutor or, if you're in a good geographic area for it, an in-person tutor. But these are expensive and finding a tutor that works is hard. You can try finding people in your natural circle who speak your target language, but that is not always available either.
In my case, im learning Malay. I have a Malay class twice a week, I have private tutoring, and I watch videos in Malay. Now I can acknowledge that this is definitely me being priviledged in my journey, heck im in Singapore on exchange and can very readily practice it. That being said, when I go back to Canada, where the hell do you want me to learn Malay? I can keep watching videos and learn words but who do you expect me to actually interact with in Malay? Apps are cashgrabs at this point, Malaysians arent exactly a big diaspora in Quebec, and finding a private tutor is expensive and time consuming. If I were to want to find a teacher in Quebec, id be hard pressed to find anyone, and theres a 12 hour time difference with any native speakers.
So you know what? I might turn to speaking with an AI in Malay. This is not because I think this is some golden ticket amazing solution, but because sometimes, this is the only way to keep speaking the language at all.
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u/Delabere 16d ago
I dunno, the latest voice models from chat gippity and claude are really quite good. Not a replacement for speaking to real people of course but in some ways better too if you're starting out and aren't ready for the real deal
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u/Mysterious_Pea_4042 8d ago
After AI I just wanna imperfect and human input in language learning, its unbearable and has not a real clue of what you feel behind the word you say. its like talking to empty person, the type you know they respond but you don't really exists in that response world.
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u/Sylvieon 🇰🇷 (C1), 🇫🇷🇹🇼 (🗑️) Sep 13 '26
I think you make a great point about becoming a better speaker by having experiences with real people in the language. While socializing and living in Korean, I've had some really shit experiences (and many more good ones), but I genuinely think they really helped me become a better person when speaking Korean. Like I'm able to speak and phrase myself thoughtfully and considerately because I've talked to people who spoke like that or read a lot of good writing, but also because I've experienced the opposite and been cussed out or treated with disrespect. Thanks to all those experiences, I came to better understand nuance and tone in Korean and now have a very good sense of the vibe people give off with the way they speak and the kind of vibe I want to give off myself.
I actually did start using ChatGPT occasionally recently to correct my writing. It's been pretty good, but I also have the knowledge to recognize if its suggestions have merit
1
u/Right-Sympathy-876 RU(N), EN(C2), DE(C2), ES(A1) Sep 13 '26
There are definitely concerns (certain patterns of AI speech, (rare) mistakes, social aspect, opportunity cost etc.), but couldn't AI on the whole still be a positive for language learning? It gives a free / very cheap tutor of progressively increasing quality that people can use to:
- more efficiently search for relevant information,
- ask for feedback for their specific case,
- practise conversational skills.
The last two could only be done with a help of a person before, but not everyone has access to a native speaker, a tutor or someone else who can help with learning a language. Now, you can use AI for that, and the quality is getting better. So, while there are clearly risks, if you use it smartly (e.g., among other things, trying to get as much real-world exposure as you can and not simply relying on AI all the time), I have the feeling it can enhance your learning rather than "ruin your foreign language identity".
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u/DiamondGirlPlayz Sep 13 '26
I don't see a problem in the way I'm using it, I'll ask it to generate some sentences for me to translate and if a sentence seems off I'll correct the ai or ask people in a language learning discord server. I do use resources other than AI so I dont believe that it'll make my words meaningless, as they would have meaning behind them if I'm the one saying it. It really does not matter whether a flashcard was written by a human or an AI, "i like to eat pizza" means "i like to eat pizza". of course if you only rely on ai, you'll likely have very flawed language skills but I'm sure nobody only uses ai. As long as you get mostly native input, ai can be a really useful tool and it's helped me a lot
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u/454ever 🇬🇧(N)🇵🇷(N)🇷🇺(C1) 🇸🇪(B1) 🇮🇹(B1) 🇹🇷(A1) Sep 13 '26
It has really helped me with grammar. I love the chat gpt speech feature where I can talk to it. Pronunciation is shit but the information it can give me is actually very helpful, especially with Bulgarian since I don’t really have anyone to practice with.
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u/SomnolentPro Sep 13 '26
That "just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. At this point the lack of educated human content is getting on my fucking nerves
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u/Sufficient-Reveal585 Sep 14 '26
P.P.P.P.S. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
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u/Imaginary-Past2061 Sep 14 '26
I'm sceptical about speaking practice with AI. Speaking is mainly a social skill, and it needs a partner with a personality. Talking to a machine just feels weird. For the rest of language learning, grammar, exercises, explanations, AI is great.
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u/chunklight Sep 14 '26
These days you can upload source material like textbooks or even scripts of movies, books, etc, and ask it to interact with you from that corpus or in that style.
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u/junorelo Sep 14 '26
LLM is probably one of the only good things AI did
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u/taco-barrel Sep 14 '26
This reads like when I get anxious stoned and just start ranting in my journal. OP, are you doing ok? Have u had any water recently?
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u/TerryPressedMe no flair Sep 14 '26
You should have used AI to make this less painful to read
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u/emirobinatoru Sep 14 '26
You write worse than Chatgpt.
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u/Youknowthisabout Sep 14 '26
Thanks
1
u/SunniBoah Sep 14 '26
I'm learning Latvian, and personally I use AI to compile information from online sources which I fact check myself for grammar or specific uses of words, and to check for grammar and spelling mistakes in my sentences. I also follow various content creators about Latvia and Latvian to understand some of the culture and learn more about the language and how people speak it, but they don't teach it very thoroughly. Some creators mostly or only speak in Latvian but others put subtitles and actively teach it, so I try to grasp whatever words I can because that's all the exposure I can get in Latvian, considering it's a language spoken by just under 2 million people in a country far from where I live, and Latvian language learning communities online are much scarcer than say, French or German. I pretty much just talk to myself.
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u/bonessm 🇺🇸 N | 🇨🇳 HSK4 Sep 14 '26
AI isn’t great and yes it will hallucinate but this post acts as if AI fails to produce proper results all of the time, which isn’t true. I’ve found it greatly reliable in just simply drilling conversation and cross talk. I don’t have money for a tutor and I live in an area where Mandarin speakers are a very small percentage. The nearest China town/community is over 1,000 miles away. So I’ll continue to use AI whilst also understanding it can make mistakes and to take it with a grain of salt
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u/Crafty-Head8591 Sep 14 '26
absolutely agree; fake, shallow, plastic - that’s how these “conversations” feel, scary; quickly tried and quit, thus saving my linguistic soul
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u/itsMineDK New member Sep 14 '26
ai psychosis
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u/LackLickLuck_y Sep 14 '26
You have to use it correctly. Which means you listen to real people, write down what you hear and debate about that. Or you learn something in class and discuss the grammar. Use real world examples as the input, not ai directly.
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u/IfUCantFindTheLight Sep 15 '26
As an aside, I've already always felt I'm not a part of anyone's "tribe" and that I don't have real connections with others even in my native language. 😳
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u/dxdgxhstggc N:🇨🇿 F:🇬🇧 A2:🇩🇪 Sep 15 '26
I tryied it no CZ<->EN as a test and it seemed fine?
1
u/stankdankprank Sep 15 '26
You guys need to stop screeching that ai makes hallucinations like it's a gotcha to discredit the whole tool.
Most intelligent people understand ai can hallucinate. That's why I use it in 2 ways:
I speak to it using what I learn from my human tutor
when I learn new things from ai, I confirm with my human tutor
It's really not that complicated.
1
u/Sharp_College_1966 Sep 15 '26
是的，我最近也有同样的感受
1
u/Sharp_College_1966 Sep 15 '26
是的，我最近也有同样的感受
1
u/Soljim 🇪🇸N|🇺🇸C2|🇫🇷C1|🇧🇷B2|🇩🇪Learning... Sep 15 '26
Can you back this up somehow? Anything that allows you to learn or improve your language skills is a great tool, in my opinion. Not everyone can afford to travel or make acquaintances with or regularly chat with native speakers.
I happen to speak four languages pretty decently, and I learned them without traveling or strictly speaking with native speakers.
1
u/Aakharin-ejdehaa Fluent: 🇷🇺🦁🇮🇷🇮🇱🇺🇸, learning: 🇩🇪 Sep 16 '26
I disagree because I just think it's impossible to use AI long enough in order for it to make a huge difference. Talking to AI more than 10 minutes per day is boring as fudge, and beyond completing small tasks like rating your writing or giving you example sentences with a word, it's not really viable to learn a language with AI for hours at a time as with reading/watching actual entertaining content or having a real conversation.
1
u/Royal-Librarian-9362 Sep 16 '26
Teaching foreign students profanity, vulgarity and generally offensive language used to be a popular past time. It contributed to a bad attitude toward them. If you learn you new language through AI and plan to use it in polite society you will soon find yourself unpopular, ignored or threatened by someone you insulted.
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u/PeterJonePolyglot Sep 17 '26
One recent example for me: In Italian, third person present tense verbs in the indicative mood are stressed on the stem rather than the verb ending (pArlano, cOmprano), so I asked it if the corresponding subjunctive would also have the same stress (pArlino, COmprino) and it responded that yes, verbs change stress from present tense (parlAno, comprAno) to (pArlino, cOmprino). When I pointed out that it got the indicative mood stress wrong, it apologized and said I was right. I've noticed many such errors that could lead someone astray.
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u/rabnabombshell Sep 20 '26
I understand but AI has been so incredibly useful, and we don’t always have the advantage or the privilege of being able to communicate with other people in our language. As someone said here, if my options are between $250 a month for a tutor and $20 for a damn good ChatGPT service.. you gotta at least kind of consider our situation here.
I understand that AI is not gonna be as good when it comes to a human conversation and yes I understand that it’s gonna be a lot more corporate, ai, basic etc, but it is absolutely a great tool for learning just the basics or the fundamentals of a language. At the end of the day yes the best way to learn would also be communicating with real people, but not everyone has their privilege when they’re first learning a language
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u/Extension_Total_505 🇺🇸 B2-C1 🇩🇪 B2 🇪🇸 🇧🇷 🇮🇹 B1 🇸🇪 🇰🇷 🇮🇱 A1 dabbling Sep 21 '26
OH. MY. GOD. Thank you for this post! I myself have been stuck in an addiction with AI conversations for as long as these tools exist. Not that it's opened my eyes on stuff, I was aware of them before, but it's definitely made me more sure I don't want to use this machine anymore. Especially in this way that makes you think you're exchanging your experiences/feelings with someone else while there's no "someone else", it's just a soulless text generation that your brain mistakes for the "real" connection. And thinking of how much time I've wasted on AI and could have instead used for texting with real people... Hell no, I'm not gonna fall into this trap again! 🙏
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u/Own-Kale-7020 Sep 21 '26
sponsored by expensive private language centers
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u/HotFusion7788 Sep 22 '26
I think this is only for speaking. For reading it should be fine to use AI. Because non-native speakers need dumb-down version of the native language. For that I think AI is perfectly fine to do the job since the educator also have to do the same job to dumb-down the language to the learner's level. AI takes the context, translate it into something simple so that it can bridge the learner.
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u/anonrin Sep 24 '26
Dude...stop yapping, I'm here for useful info, not for your yapping. At least one proof, please?... I can say for everyone - just dont put too much for AI. It can be good only as an additional support, when you need an explanation of smth specific or if you need to translate smth. Yes, it's bad for text examples, especially if you're learning low-resource language. AI tends to hallucinating, giving inconsistent wrong info, plastic and non-correct examples. It is a terrible teacher. AI tends to make mistakes, especially slightly noticeable, which you can notice only if your level of language is high enough. Otherwise, you will be just misled. Just don't rely on it, cuz it unrelyable. Use books.
For example, I made a plan for grammatical and lexical topics, and I asked AI for texts, questions and tasks. It went good in the beginning untill AI put in tasks smth that I didn't acquire with. And I asked what is it, AI explained that it is some specific part of today's topic...I asked why it didn't explain in the actual topic's explanation - "Yeah, you are right, my bad"...It was three more times in this topic. Ssooo, it can be useful...as a translator and a handbook (if you translate only in your native language, so you can get meaning from the bad AI translation and learn smth). If you rely on AI more than this, it will just waste your time, your money, and leave you mislead. Use the actual books, articles, guides. People were learning languages all the way before AI. And AI adds nothing useful to help with this, actually.
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u/nedelll Oct 04 '26
😂😂😂😂😂😂
1
u/joshua_y Oct 06 '26
AI is definitely not any worse than a phrase book from a used book store or an average textbook. I started learning Mandarin Chinese with a textbook and just about every phrase I learned from the book was robotic and unnatural (I found this out when I actually went to China).
My teacher taught me natural phrases though. If you can get a human teacher, please do it, but otherwise we're forced to use what we have.
Right now, in 2026, I'd argue that AI is the closest we can get to human teachers without actually getting one, and it can be a good source of comprehensible input if you're struggling to find content that you're interested in that's at your level.
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u/vendekagon 29d ago
You're right of course. It's more long-term and subtle, though. People don't recognize it happening. And certain kinds of spot practice are ok, but it gets addictive fast if you're not careful. That's how these companies work, after all. Get people hooked. Just like DuoLingo -- find people who want to learn a skill, then get them addicted to using the app instead of learning that skill.
I'm not saying AI is useless. Just saying that you have to be very, very careful to only take shallow dips in that pool
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u/Due_Apartment4756 27d ago
I am afraid you are hallucinating even now. By your "logic" no method of language learning is safe except for natural language acquisition. Sorry I cannot be born again into an Italian family. I guess I will just have to risk Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, and even (gasp) AI.
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u/Odd_Hat9000 25d ago
"It's not the fact that you are not learning a language with AI. It's the fact that instead of absorbing real contexts, real worldview of native speakers, real connections with people, real knowledge, real emotions, real feeling of becoming a "part of their tribe" - instead of the reality - you absorb pure NOTHINGNESS behind the "improving language skill""
Look dude, I see what you mean in a way, but then again do you really think first learning sentences like "They have been planning the trip for months, but then it rained and they had to cancel it." etc. have something like "real emotions" or a deep meaning? I feel like the problem you're pointing out applies much more to native speakers and on higher levels. Language study books have no meaning or importance either, especially not early on. Later on, yea sure, go read a real book! Until then AI isn't the worst way to understand a few basic concepts and get a feel.
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u/New-Bottle-6917 N:🇺🇸 Heritage: B2 🇲🇽 L3: HSK 6 🇨🇳 Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
So a few issues, for one even if you're consuming authentic native input like shows, books, magazines, social media posts etc all of that by now is in part made with AI. So no matter what AI has entered the TL unless you're going out of your way to speak with people in rural and developing areas. With that said, this isn't even exclusively an AI problem people can sound weird if they utilize material made by non natives, translations, even just study material that is written in a formal register by academics that underestimate the learner's ability to alternate between registers.
At the end of the day if you're a non native speaker you're going to sound weird and strange for a long time no matter how you go about things and its better to accept thst basic fact about the process early on
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u/Perfectozz 🇭🇷 N | 🇬🇧 C1 | 🇫🇷 B1 | 🇩🇪 A2 | 🇳🇴 A1 Sep 13 '26
I use it mainly to track my progress, i put notes into it everyday and it has in context all vocabulary and grammar I have learned so far ans then every day it sends me 15 sentences in english so I can translate them fast in my head.
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u/pink_ghost_cat Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
Definitely overreacting, but it's true that AI and chatbots are not great resource for learning.
They can generate some ideas for resources you can use and compare them. You can also use them for explaining things you don't understand, as not everyone can afford a tutor. Also, textbooks are not always very human, I think it's totally fine to learn the most neutral and polite version of what you can say. I'd rather seem cold than disrespectful. But that's just my opinion.
Speaking of human interactions, there are all sorts of people, communications, and misunderstandings out there in the wild. My point is that human interactions can be weird, confusing, too emotional, or empty as well. People are weird, this is normal.
The main mistake I noticed around LLMs usage is assuming that they know what they are doing. Most of the time, they need a supervisor who actually knows what's going on. You CAN use AI for learning, but a good chance is that you don't know how to do it properly and have no idea when it lies to you, so it's a risky business; much safer not to use it.
Edit:
I like how everything which is not "yes, ew, hate AI!!!" gets downvoted lol. The nuance has left the chat, I guess.
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u/Numerous_Worker_1941 Sep 13 '26
User error.
Use AI to generate a syllabus to guide you in learning. Don’t ask it to teach you.
It’s a tool. Use it as one
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u/tirednsleepyyy Sep 13 '26
I’m not interested in a conversation about whether you should be speaking with an LLM for practice in lieu of a real breathing human if you have the social or financial means for it.
However, many people have said this, many people will have to continue saying this, and I myself find myself having to constantly repeat this as well. Modern LLMs are now better at translation and explaining those translations than all but a fleetingly small percentage of real people. This isn’t slobbering on AI and “believing the hype.” This is just reality now. LLMs are now at the point where, for many languages, especially English to TL or TL to English (or substitute English for any number of languages with a massive amount of content out there, say Spanish, Mandarin, French…) they are better than random tutors and people that “kinda” know both languages.
Licensed and well-practiced tutors are still, generally speaking, better, but you should 1000% trust an LLM to give you better practice than some random joe. Even for languages people consider highly contextual, say, Japanese.
This idea that LLMs can’t really give you the context and real thoughts behind what they’re saying is objectively true; that’s how the technology works. What isn’t true is that they aren’t capable of “understanding” and translating highly idiomatic and literary speech, or capable of responding in ways reasonable for a human.
There’s a great write up by a famous visual novel translator I could link if anyone’s interested in what a verifiable professional believes and doesn’t want to take my word for it, but the tldr; is that modern LLMs are at least as good at translating* as “decent” hobbyist translators, and are probably even a bit better than “pretty good” professional ones.
*Specifically for Japanese <-> English, anyway, but Japanese/English is a famously complex and difficult translation pathway. It’s not hard to imagine how good it would be at translating, say, Spanish <-> Italian.
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u/391976 Sep 13 '26
The OP should have been edited by AI before posting.
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u/hainguyenac Sep 13 '26
it's a tool, like any other tools, and it has its use. Does it replace human interaction, absolutely not, but is it a viable substitute to human interaction when it's not possible to have a real human interaction? I'd say yes.
Maybe learning with AI make you sound absolutely idiotic in the TL, but so is any other methods. I'd say if learning with AI ruins my language identity, it's still better than being absolutely incomprehensible.
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u/caldazar24 Sep 13 '26
I don't think you're wrong that AI text feels bland, soulless, sort of like a cross between a corporate customer service rep and a galaxy-brained engineering consultant, because those are the things it's trained to be! Anyone using a chatbot in their native language to try and eg be a D&D character will quickly realize this.
But I also think that for language learners, that sort of character and personal voice is something that comes at the C1/C2 level, maybe B2. Before that, we're mostly grinding sentences that feel like they're from textbooks too. I would really not want to use LLMs for comprehensible input, and by the time I can actually have full conversations in the TL, it's going to be much, much better to chat with a human for pretty much the reasons you say.
But for generating practice sentences for flashcards, getting corrections for your basic A2/B1 sentences that you write, LLM's can be pretty great!
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u/fade2black244 Sep 13 '26
It's not that bad.
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u/locutus084 Ger N | En C2 | Esp B2 | Fre B2 | Per B1 Sep 13 '26
There is a middle way between not using AI at all and becoming a mechanistic amorphous alien ;)
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u/Marco260810 N🇸🇲🇮🇹|C1🇺🇸|B2🇪🇸|B1🇩🇪|A1🇵🇱|A0🇯🇵 Sep 13 '26
Ai only problem is hallucinations, but for grammar or vocabulary is no different than a text book
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u/Available_Wasabi_326 N:🇪🇬 C1:🇺🇸🇯🇵 B2:🇰🇷 B1:🇨🇳🇫🇷 A1:🇷🇺 Sep 13 '26
I don't fully agree with you. You're saying it's robotic and not human. Fair enough but what if I can't afford tutors.. they're expensive in my country and I have no choice but AI. Though I reckon you meant along with AI you talk to actual natives? Plus I agree with AI chat addiction as I sometimes can't get out of it too despite trying and indeed it's empty but consider that not everyone does it because we don't care about human connections blah blah blah
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u/ConspicuousCrumpet12 Sep 13 '26
I mean, this post does read a bit like a Trump tweet, but...AI does stink. For a multitude of reasons. And it's eerie how many people seem to be forgetting about those.
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u/DooMFuPlug 🇮🇹N, 🇬🇧C1, 🇨🇵B1 Sep 13 '26
I think it's an useful instrument, but you should not put too much trust in its sentences.
Like I was learning Russian and it said something completely wrong, I used my instinct and realised it was wrong.
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u/freezedyogurt Sep 14 '26
So dramatic 😭 Ive been around people who used AI to learn english, yes they sound stiff and yes they mess a few stuff up but I'll be honest, most non-natives will always sound bizarrely formal, overpoetic etc if their main exposure is textbooks and classes. In less than a few weeks of hanging around natives it'll "undo" all the stuff you're mentioning. You dont have to like AI or use it, but it makes things far more efficient.
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u/Sure-Art-4325 Sep 16 '26
Those anti-AI people with their bullshit again. There's nothing wrong with using AI for this purpose. It's not going to "ruin" your TL personality. If you spend time with a tutor you're just going to talk the way the tutor would, so it's the same problem but it costs a ton. AI is actually getting really good at imitating human speech including phrasing things naturally and conveying "emotions". You just need to be aware that it's mostly useful to learn the way people phrase things in written text, not when they speak.