Comment by adastra22
1 day ago
Most of the generalized curriculum stuff out there is crap because languages differ from each other in substantial ways. LLMs in principle should help here as they can use their knowledge of the structure of the language to modify, but we're just not there with context windows and thinking capabilities. They will need at least a per-language (ideally per language pair) system prompt that contains a rough outline of the curriculum.
I think the curriculum areas you're referring to are for learners in the beginning and intermediate stages. In which case, fair enough, although I still think you could get pretty far by just prompting an LLM, as the LLM has read hundreds of books teaching how to learn each language. But that's not really my point; my point is that once you're an advanced learner (they claim this is their target market) who knows about 12,000 words, I think you know almost all of the grammar, and the remaining bits will get picked up along the way effortlessly via immersion. What you need help with in this stage is slogging through the next 10,000 vocab words you need to learn to get to extreme fluency or the next 25,000 you need to learn to become plausibly native-level, as well as the speaking and reading practice to make your reading faster (if it's a different character set to your native language) and make your speaking effortless.
At that point why engage with an LLM? Just go read a book.
Probably too long of an answer, but: averaged out over the months, I spend 30 minutes every weekday doing flashcards, 45 minutes with a tutor, and spend another 1.25 hours watching TV or reading books in my target language. With 2.5 hours every weekday on average and without life immersion (at your home or office) it's possible to get to reading/writing/speaking/understanding fluency (including in terms of speed) in a difficult language in about 3-4 years and near-native in another 2 years. It's very difficult as an English native to learn a language like Chinese, Japanese, or Thai. It's not like learning Spanish or French (which I have also studied). To answer your question directly, surprisingly, reading a book does very little to help your speaking or understanding abilities. The skills of understanding accents/pronunciations quickly enough and the skill of structuring sentences when speaking quickly enough are completely different skills. Writing/reading/speaking/understanding are four remarkably unrelated skills that must be trained separately. Actually, typing on a keyboard and writing by hand are also different. Because thai actually has a different keyboard on desktop vs phone, since it became good enough, I decided to simply use speech to text for the rest of my life. I'm remarkably fluent in comprehension and have read quite a few adult books and yet if you give me a pencil and paper my brain can't figure out how to spell a word that I can easily say or type. And why use an LLM instead of a tutor? To save $2,700 a year.