In my language studies, I often come across similar words and wonder about the differences between them. What's the difference between "listen" and "hear"? Between "watch" and "see"? Between "I think that's correct" and "I believe that's correct"?
I've been asking ChatGPT to explain some of these differences, and I've been really happy with the answers I get.
There are never enough practice sentences.
(I'm sure other language learners would disagree with me. I feel comfortable with lots of drill.)
I tried asking ChatGPT for some practice sentences for German:
me:
I feel like I've seen lots of people claim that ChatGPT is good at mimicking the style of particular writers. (I seem to recall one writer who asked ChatGPT to write in his own style, and was really impressed by the results. I wonder if I can find that and link to it ... )
Well, the first "in the style of" experiment that occurred to me was this:
me:
Write a feminist song in the style of Steely Dan.
ChatGPT
This is one of the things I think ChatGPT does really well - which makes sense, because comparing and mimicking existing language use is exactly what ChatGPT does. (It doesn't understand anything it's "saying;" it's just creating sentences similar to sentences real people have used in the past.)
The first time I tried this, ChatGPT just provided the corrected version; there was no bolding or anything to show me what it had fixed.
I asked ChatGPT for definitions of vocabulary words in very simple wording, and having gotten some decent results in French and Italian, I thought I would try Japanese.
This did not work at all.
me:
Create definitions in very simple Japanese for each vocabulary word at http://ohelo.org/japn/lang/genki_vocab_table.php?lesson=8
ChatGPT:
Sure! Here are the definitions for each vocabulary word in lesson 8 of Genki textbook in very simple Japanese:
I find definitions in comprehensible (simple) language immensely helpful in learning a language, but they can be really hard to come by. There are plenty of online dictionaries, but the definitions tend toward pretty advanced language.
If only there were dictionaries in every language using Up Goer Five-style definitions using only the most common words!
It turns out ChatGPT sometimes does a pretty decent job.
Here's my first try:
me:
Learning languages on my own, I find it can be difficult to locate reading material that's at the right level for me.
And it occurred to me that it would be especially nice to have reading passages that focused on vocabulary I was studying.
So I tried the following prompt with ChatGPT:
me:
I've been enjoying my early experiments with ChatGPT.
Even though I know it's just a very elaborate computer program, I find it hard sometimes not to talk to it like a person.
I find that I usually say please - and its responses are friendly enough that I feel encouraged to keep doing it:
Kristi: Could you also translate that to English, please?
ChatGPT: Sure! The translation of "幸せは、なんですか？ 非常に簡単な日本語でいってください。" to English is "What is happiness? Please explain in very simple Japanese."
I've been interested in ChatGPT as people have been talking about it more and more lately, but I didn't have any ideas about what I might want to use it for - until I thought about using it for language practice.
It's terrible for providing factual information - ChatGPT doesn't know what's true and what's false, and it makes stuff up all the time.
However, what it's good at - what it primarily does - is recognize and mimic existing language patterns.