Using AI as a practice tool

Japanese
#1

Very beginning learner, and fairly new to Bunpro here. Mostly worked through Genki I and most of the way through N5 grammar on this site.

Recently, I’ve been dabbling with using a generative AI program as a practice tool, using a few different formats. I’ve asked to give me English sentences that I can translate, with a prompt to limit the sentences to those that are N5 vocab and very simple grammar in Japanese. I’ve asked it to give me N5 katakana words so that I can practice reading (I have far less facility with katakana than hiragana). I’m considering asking it to engage in simple simulated back and forth conversation.

I’m curious what folks might think about using AI as a practice tool this way. I think my biggest concern would be the risk of being taught unnatural - or flat-out incorrect - Japanese. Certainly at a higher level of grammar or nuance, that would be a real risk - but I think at my super-beginner level, AI can probably handle drilling me on proper particle use and te-form exercises.

Any thoughts? I’d like to start having some output practice in addition to my iTalki sessions, but there’s not much opportunity for that where I live (Miami)…

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#2

It’s fine for conversation practice (conversation is like the one thing LLMs are actually good at) but I’ve seen it be wrong too many times when trying to actually explain language stuff to recommend it for that.

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#3

I use it. Very rarely has it given me incorrect explanations for grammar and words; however, I’m still only at a begginner level, so maybe it gets worse when you get to a more advanced level of Japanese lol. I mainly use it for giving me grammar exercises of grammar patterns I need to know. But having a textbook is also a really good idea, because sometimes it can tell you things a lot more straightforward and give you more nuance that maybe ChatGPT didn’t catch. Just my two cents, tho… anyways good luck on your Japanese learning!

#4

I do the same, I’ll ask GPT to make a practice sentence and such

HOWEVER–do err on the side of caution. If you try and ask it to explain XYZ to you, it could get it wrong. I’ve seen that happen a lot. I primarily use it to make practice sentences and such to read.

My verdict would be to use it cautiously and ask any real questions somewhere like the forums to prevent a risk of getting taught incorrect things.

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#5

I think there are good tools out there others have discussed on the forum that can help you that aren’t AI, like sites for drilling conjugations. Not to be a debby downer, but I’d be careful using AI - not least because of the environmental impact even a single inquiry has, bad data safety practices across the industry, research showing detrimental neurological impacts, etc. - but also because it’s just a mimicry of natural language production, and there will inevitably be errors. What you’re wanting to do, there are tools and platforms out there that can help you (dig through the forums! Lots of good info here), so it’s not like AI is uniquely capable of helping you out here. At the end of the day you can do whatever you want, but I’d just be careful with how you choose to integrate AI into your language learning process.

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#6

AI is pretty good at spot/proof checking your Japanese and spotting errors, but you have to be specific in what feedback you are looking for. In the absence of a (paid) tutor who will give feedback on your written work AI is pretty good and can handle more frequent requests on feedback.

I’ve tried to do translation drills where AI prompts a sentence to translate and gives feedback on the quality of the translation, but not over a long enough period to give a qualitative impression on the quality of the work I produce.

I wouldn’t use AI as a primary source for learning, but it’s a powerful tool if you have a good foundation in comprehension. AI does make mistakes and can be sycophantic, but the rate it makes mistakes is low enough where I believe you’ll have a significant net gain if used properly.

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#7

Another way I’d put it is if AI can write better (“better” meaning grammatically correct, coherent, albeit not structurally or factually correct) English than most English speakers, it can do so the same with Japanese. Large language models are language models, after all. The problems with AI are rarely to do with grammar and how they speak, but moreso with specific understanding which is where you have to be careful.

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#8

Thanks for all the quick feedback, everyone.

Responding to maurice620, those are excellent points - and things I’m concerned about as well. I’ve used online tools and platforms to do drills on things like conjugation and basic grammar. But I worry that they’re not actually helping me with large aspects of my language learning.

I got to the point where I was fairly good at spitting out the correct response to a tool asking for the past, negative, polite version of [random godan verb]. And if presented with a written sentence in Japanese using very basic grammar, I have little problem reading it. But when I had my first iTalki sessions with a real live person, I couldn’t even find my way to forming the sentence “Yesterday I went to the park” in real time. I know that part of that is practice, but also I think part of it is that doing drills on parts of speech isn’t the same as working through forming sentences in response to questions (or being asked to translate).

That’s kind of what I was thinking a chatbot could do, but I’d love to find something that isn’t AI that could fill that role. I’ll dig through the forums and see what’s there.

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#9

Thanks for the response! I’ve also had these issues, and personally the only thing that’s helped me get over them in all of my learned languages has been speaking with real people. I understand that tutoring can be prohibitively expensive, and I’m not sure how many Japanese people there are in Miami, but finding a Japanese friend irl or someone else who’s learning Japanese to practice with/continuing with italki I think is a good idea.

Best of luck!

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#10

Hop over into this topic: Have you written your Japanese Sentence today? - #3471 by Myriamn. Writing a sentence or two a day keeps the chat bot away!

Although undoubtedly LLM is more reliable and convenient at providing feedback than fellow learners.

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#11

I’ve been considering as a tool for conversation practice. Over the Thanksgiving holiday my brother showed me one of those Grok Avatars and asked me to say something to it. I asked it to speak Japanese with me and switched right away. The conversation was surprisingly natural and we must have talked for about 5 minutes on topics such as Thanksgiving and other festivities. It was interesting and a bit surreal, but a good supplement I think.

But the truth is that human interaction is just as important and I would prioritize that if you can. AI still has a certain way of speaking and it’s best if you can speak to as many people as you can too, cause after a while, a chatbot especially will adapt to you and may not correct you accordingly unless you tell it to do so specifically.

So I guess in a nutshell, I think it’s a great resource to use as long traditional resources are used in conjunction.

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#12

I don’t use it but I know people with experience using it for Japanese.
LLMs are that - language learning models - so on some level, they are very effective at giving you replies that mimic real language. But because of that, as others have mentioned, you run the risk of encountering natural-but-not-correct Japanese. It also really depends on which one you’d use - my dad tried to use something to write Japanese to me and it spat out something that looked like the script of a Samurai drama. I’m sure to him it looked really convincing. Annoyingly perhaps, at a lower level where it might be useful to have something like that you can’t really see where the mistakes are, and once you’re able to see the mistakes, you’re already high enough level you can get the same effect from talking with real people who can actually understand what you’re looking for and adjust their words and explanations accordingly, and you can probably look things up yourself.

TLDR I guess it might be useful but I worry about someone at a beginner level learning bad habits and having no way to know that they are.