daniels11

Sure! I'm building a personalized AI language learning tutor using Open AI's API and ElevenLabs (for Text to Speech).

Right now it's basically a chat bot that you can use to practice conversing with. It provides corrections for the things you type. Eventually I'd like to try adding Whisper as well to allow users to speak out loud.

When you hover over a word, you get a translation. Initially I thought using Open AI for every word translation would be too much, but I've been able to get it down to ~36-40 tokens/request. (3-4 cents/1000 requests). I also began parsing and uploading some of this [Wiktionary data](https://kaikki.org/dictionary/rawdata.html) and am working on a feature that integrates the GPT-3.5 translation with this Wiktionary data.

A lot of these features are still in the works but you can feel free to try it if you like (https://trytutor.app).

I will say that GPT-4 is just incredibly expensive. For my app I only use it for advanced translations/corrections, and usually a combination of GPT-3.5+Wiktionary is able to get the more simple stuff done

what models would you use for translation? I am working on a language learning tutor (trytutor.app, very early) and GPT-3.5 turbo has been working fine, for the most part.

For foreign language corrections ("correct this German sentence and give a reason for the correction"), GPT-3.5 doesn't quite have the horsepower so I use GPT-4

I admit it's been a few years since I've dug really deep into Anki - you are right, I could probably fix the problems with the algorithm by tweaking the advanced options. Still, it'd be nice to have something that works out of the box.

Yes - I'm aware that Anki cards can include images and audio, and I've used those features extensively enough to know they are definitely lacking for my use case! Mostly, I'd like to make it easier to add the images and audio. The way I've done it in the past was googling for a stock image, downloading Forvo/Wiktionary audio files, and then dropping them into the Anki app. I'd appreciate an easier way to add these audio files and images when I add new vocabulary to my decks.

Nice article! This would've been very helpful a few years back when I was attempting to make an Anki clone while teaching myself to code.

I'd still love to create a better open-source SRS algorithm at some point in the future. Mostly to use for language learning.

When I was learning Chinese characters, I did a bit of a deep dive into the Anki algorithm and found that the biggest flaw (imho) was the Ease Factor knocking a card back to 0.

If you mostly know a card, but miss it on one day for some reason - maybe you were tired or distracted, that card's learning progress should not be totally reset (as if you were learning it from scratch). That leads you to have too many cards to review on a daily basis. Instead, you should use some modifier to increase the interval to a reasonable level.

More explanation here: https://readbroca.com/anki/ease-hell/

I think it would be awesome to pair SRS with high quality images and audio, which I find most helpful for language learning. I've used Rosetta Stone and Duolingo in the past; Rosetta Stone has great audio and images but lacks a powerful SRS (it also has a number of other flaws in my mind, but I'll save that for another time). Duolingo is great for grammar and explanations, but I can't take the pronunciations and tediousness of it all.

How do you automate the pronunciation? I’d be curious to know what your process is like.

I have wanted to automate my flash cards with Forvo pronunciations (rather than TTS) for awhile but haven’t been able to figure out how

The one thing I wish this tool had is the ability to tap on touch screens - coffee shop cash register screens, grocery stores, mail lockers, etc.

I like this quote from Ira Glass:

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, and I really wish somebody had told this to me.

All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But it's like there is this gap. For the first couple years that you're making stuff, what you're making isn't so good. It’s not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not that good.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you're making is kind of a disappointment to you. A lot of people never get past that phase. They quit.

Everybody I know who does interesting, creative work they went through years where they had really good taste and they could tell that what they were making wasn't as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short. Everybody goes through that.

And if you are just starting out or if you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you're going to finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you're going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you're making will be as good as your ambitions.

I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It takes awhile. It’s gonna take you a while. It’s normal to take a while. You just have to fight your way through that.

—Ira Glass

https://readbroca.com/

I write about language learning (specifically Chinese). I've written some stuff about learning with Anki.

Had to put it on pause for a little bit but plan to pick it up again soon.