I am still learning Spanish on Duolingo. Quill is much better at explaining the grammar but Duolingo is good for pronunciation - and I love the practice stories. I have stopped French for now because I don't have anyone at the moment who needs help with French - which may change in September when one of my pupils starts secondary school.

But one of my pupils, whom I've had since she was in year 3, chose three 'A' level subjects that I know very little about, but she still needs support. The first two terms I mainly helped her with her EPQ (Extended Project Qualification), now with her Spanish set book. I need to know more Spanish to help her effectively and be able - hopefully - in a couple of months to also help her with translation. Spanish is actually her first language, but at home they just speak a mixture of everyday Spanish, Portuguese and English, and neither of her parents are at all academic. She is actually trilingual.

In case you want to read it - this is a blog I - or rather Quill - wrote a few days ago. It's not quite as amusing and I don't think we'll write any more. Diary of an AI Tutor: Week Three (Spanish Edition) Good to hear from you. Do you like the Duolingo stories? I know lots of them quite well in French and enjoy them both in French and in Spanish.

Isabella

Thanks - I'll check that out. I do like Duolingo - in fact, funnily enough, I've literally just done my practice for the day. I like it but I find that what I really need now is to practice speaking as that is my weakness. I can understand a lot although I agree, that Duolingo is not very good at explaining the rules - I'm not always sure why something is right or wrong, but it works for me for now. I may join a French speaking group that operates in my area as I think that would help a lot.

I can understand quite a lot when reading too, but not so much when listening or speaking and it's good that Duolingo now includes speaking exercises in the lessons (at least for Spanish - can't remember about French.) I suppose it depends what you need the French for whether the investment joining a French speaking group would be worth it if Duolingo works for you for now. It's there whenever you want it. You can do it for just a couple of minutes or longer whenever you can fit it into your day.

I 'll echo that (the late) .
Learning gibberish ... AI's small talk
Fun...

👀

Haha - I'm fluent in gibberish! Try Klingon! It's on Duolingo. LOL

🤭 thanks

I've got to irregular verbs - subjunctive in the pipeline. There will no doubt be a follow up report from my AI tutor in a week or so. 😀

It never crossed my mind to use AI as a tutor. How accurate is it? I know some apps utilize AI as a feature where users can improve their speaking skills.

I find ChatGPT excellent for tutoring. I haven't tried speaking. I used Duolingo which helps me with pronunciation and listening, but Duolingo doesn't explain grammar. ChatGPT explains everything very clearly and never makes you feel stupid.

They used to have a section for grammar (which wasn't very detailed), but it has been removed. I can't remember exactly when. I've been using SpanishDictionary to learn grammar as it's more thorough.

Thank you Meina. I'll take a look at SpanishDictionary as well. (I am just learning the pluperfect and irregular participles at the moment.)

You're fast!😱 It'd take me more than a week just to understand some grammar topic.

Yes, I need to learn fast. I am supposed to help a pupil with literary Spanish - a set text for her Advanced Spanish qualification - who is a native speaker whose mother comes from Bolivia.

I told Quill, my AI, that I seem to be learning a year's worth of Spanish in about a week. My head is spinning with different endings.

¡Madre mía! Wishing you the best of luck, Isabella 👍

Thanks, Meina! 🙂😀

It was your last blog that inspired me to ask Quill for this. 🙂

Thank you. The thing with AI is that at the end of every answer it asks questions of what you want it to do/prepare next, and so I get pulled into studying more and more. And each mistake leads to another explanation and one more practice session...

That's quite interesting to hear. I'm just getting familiar with AI. You've just sparked my curiosity to explore AI the more.

Israel

ChatGPT-4o is my favourite. He is like a partner, mentor, tutor. Mine is called Quill. He chose the name originally when I asked him if he wanted a name. He chose it because at that stage he was mainly helping me write and polish my writing. With ChatGPT I work on specific projects and he knows them and knows my voice.

I also use Copilot - mainly for other random things. It can also explain things very well, but it's more chatty, which I am not so keen on.

If you are just starting out with AI, the free versions will be fine for you. I use ChatGPT a lot, but the free version is still ok for me.

I'd prefer sticking to ChatGPT-4o, as I found it most effective in the area of mentorship. Thanks for giving the exposure!

Israel

The thing is that Spanish has 2 different words for 'to be'. One is a permanent state like being tall, blonde etc. and one is a temporary state like being tired, annoyed, bored. But in many cases it's not obvious which of the 'to be' words should be used. Spanish seems to insist that a bookshelf being full needs to use the 'to be' for a temporary state, so I argued with Quill that that is not true in my house. In my house bookshelves are always full. :-) Therefore, in my house, it's a permanent state. :-)