Jumpspeak and Quazel look like interesting options. Trying to avoid wasting my money if no good.
Cheers
AI language conversation apps are appearing now. None of them seem to have free trials to test them out. Anyone found a good one?
I’ve been trying out Talkpal ( http://talkpal.ai ). You can use it for ten minutes a day for free, but it’s only about 50 for the year. It’s definitely not for beginners, but is fun for chatting about all kinds of things, with good feedback on what you get wrong 
Can you do more than one language from the same account/subscription?
You don't need AI, just I ;-)
1 Like
Not sure about that, although I imagine that once you've paid you can do what you want! If not, maybe you could do the free ten minute thing with one language and use the paid version for another...
Very interesting use of AI. What makes it not for beginners?
Also, I just saw that Quazel is an ETH Zurich spinoff project.
This has just been released and looks very promising https://yourteacher.ai
The "avatars" look like models and the "benefits" are extremely biased.
I work with AI material and adapt it to various levels. At the moment, AI production of B1 text is closer to B2. I'm not convinced of AI's skills as an ersatz teacher yet, but my opinion may change in the future, as the software continues to develop.
I wonder if they really cover languages equally, ie standard high German is quite trivial (for me) compared to proper fast French spoken by say parisians. One of the reason is, you hear all letters, in french (not only) ends are cut so you need to understand context of the sentence.
Or is this purely passive part of language where you listen, and it doesn't listen to you and correct you? That's always the most difficult part of any language, engaging actively in novel dialogs.
I look at talkpal page and there is some ambiguous writing, not 100% clearly stating they fully support it and not just written part (and that would be quite a feat, not just hallucinating cat pictures from existing stolen art)
Did you watch the demo video? They make clear that the “teachers” are not real and that the whole thing is a work in progress and far from perfect yet.
I use language learning apps... and they have AI aspects to them, for example speech analysis (so they check if I pronounce stuff correctly). However, the conversations are pre-designed and not free flow. I personally dont think AI is good enough for that yet...
I keep on getting auto-translated news on my work laptops browser home page and there are still amazingly stupid mistakes. This morning did I see an article labelled "Die besten Schiessbremsen der Welt". If it did not show an image of a station wagon would I have never figured out that this was probably "shooting brakes" in English before...
Just by using those kind of stock photos of teachers discredits the seriousness of the software program. Let's hope they create something more than a gimmick.
I don't think the ten-minute free version would be great if you didn't have a single word of German (or whichever language you choose), but can't speak for the paid version.
With a recent promotion, I signed up for a year of the TalkPal premium for 47.99. It looked to be a versatile option. Im happy to answer any questions.
Sure, how does that differ form opensource ML models coupled with whisper (for having actual vocal conversation instead of typing)?
From my perspective, I`d say consistency, efficiency, and convenience. You can create an account and have full access to reading, writing, and spoken training in a matter of minutes on desktop and mobile. You can speak to TalkPal and converse and it may even use Whisper. (It uses ChatGPT underneath so I wouldn't be surprised.)
I was finding that I could literally spend days or weeks looking at the various paid and free open source models. TalkPal put everything I needed together at an acceptable price point for use immediately. There is also an instant feedback feature that evaluates your grammar and usage and explains possible errors. I didn't see that in the other platforms I found.
TalkPal also supports over 50 target languages and it appears I can easily switch between them. Perhaps l see how that works later today. Im also curious how it would evaluate my English speaking.
The fact you can use it instantly from anywhere at anytime it indeed an advantage. Your own setup requires you to sit at your desk or at least power on your desktop, keeping an always-on machine in the cloud would cost way more than 50 chf/pa
I eventually signed up for yourteacher.ai
It’s pretty good for new technology, although it has some issues. For example it often mis-hears what I say. They have a discord server where you can report issues and they seem to be trying to iron them all out. I have spoken more German this week since signing up than any week before, I do struggle to think of things to talk about though.
I thought about it, so I’ve made a little research, but in the end I can’t (don’t want to) use any of them.
Let’s talk about https://talkpal.ai fist. It’s cheap but not great, but since it’s cheap it may be good enough. Unfortunately if you check the TOC, it’s clear that they treat you (the user) as a product, not as a guinea pig testing it, but as a real product. You accept that all the data you share became theirs and can be used anywhere. Sorry, I don’t want my voice recordings to be published or sold to shady business.
Next one, https://languatalk.com, gives much better control of you data. However only on the surface, as their TOC allows:
"We may make changes to these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will revise the “last updated” date shown above. It is your responsibility to review these Terms frequently and to remain informed of any changes to them. The then-current version of these Terms will supersede all earlier versions. You agree that your continued use of our Services after such changes have been published to our Services will constitute your acceptance of such revised Terms. If you do not agree to any of these terms or any future Terms, do not use or access (or continue to access) the Service. If you are a business user, for example a Teacher, any change to our Terms for Teachers will be communicated with at least a 15 day notice period. In the event that the business user does not accept the changes, they will have the right to terminate the contract. If any clause or part of this Agreement is considered invalid by any court or arbitrator, this does not mean that the whole Agreement will be judged invalid." Well, that basically means you agree to anything in the Future License without your consent (unless you join them as Teacher).
Meh, for now I’ll stay with an old school https://www.italki.com
Duolingo now also has an AI option (Max), but the normal paid plan seems to be good enough for what I need. At least I think it is a failrly trustworthy company.