6 Free (AI) Language Learning Apps (better than Duolingo!)

So, I'll be showing you a couple of different ways in which you can be using AI to help you with your language

learning. The first of which is to use Gemini story book. And this basically allows you to make story books in any language. I think it supports like 50 different languages, 45 plus languages. And you can just go to Gemini link down below in the description and say something like, "Hey, can you make me a story book in Japanese about dinosaurs? It should be targeted at about a 7 8year-old level. " Then I can change this typo presenter. And now it will generate me a story book to help me learn words to do with dinosaurs. And you can do this for anything else. For example, if you want to learn more technical terms, but it at an easier level in easier sentences, then you can say, "Generate me a story book about like a boy using a computer and discovering the internet for the first time. " Or, "Generate me a story book about blockchains. " So, this takes about 3 to 4 minutes to do. And the story books are also read out loud as well, which makes it really good. So you can see it said I've created a story book in Japanese about dinosaurs for a seven, eight-year-old. And I can press a lesson over here or flick through the pages. So this is the first page and then I can press lesson. And if you have a pop-up dictionary extension installed on your computer like Yomitan, then you can hover over a word and press shift and then I can see the meaning of this word. I do have a full video about this feature which is linked down below in the description

somewhere. Now moving on to the next tool. You can use Google's notebook which is also available as a mobile application as well and it's mainly a tool for understanding anything but it is now available in over 50 languages. So you can use it for language learning as well. I'll show you one particular use case. So for example, if I press create new notebook or create over here link down below and then I can either upload my own sources or upload my own videos or I can search for sources. So for example, if I search in Japanese the most important parts about generative AI for example, then I can just find sources to do with that and press submit. And now it will take a second. But you can also search in your native language as well. So I have these sources over here that it found online. I can press import. And now the most important thing you want to do is you want to go to settings over here. Choose output language and then change it to language that you're studying. So it can be any of these languages over here. For me it's Japanese. Press save. And then you can go to audio overview. Press the like pen pencil icon over here. And then you can choose the length of like this audio overview that's going to generate the style like whether it will be a brief, critique, debate or something like that. And you can choose shorter or longer. Choose output language. Again, it should be your output language that you set in generally. And you can write in what the host should focus in on this episode. So I can say explain it as you would to a 5year-old. Press generate. And now it may take between 3 to 7 minutes or something. So you may want to come back to this later. But in the meantime, I can show you the mobile application. So after you download it from the app store, you can log into your Google account and then click on any notebook that you generated. And then you can go to studio and then you can like download it onto your phone and also press play. So you can listen to it offline. So for example, I can press play on this one. And of course, you can adjust the instructions depending on your listening ability and language level. And the reason I find this to be effective is because here like two different hosts, AI hosts are talking to each other. And it's kind of like listening to a podcast. And I don't know about you, but I usually remember information much better when I hear it in a podcast form because like two people interacting and like bouncing ideas around. So usually when I hear like two or three podcasts from the author of a particular book that I like, I understand the main ideas of the book much better than just listening to audiobook version. So you can see the version that we have on our computer is done over here. So I can press play and yeah if you want the transcript of this. So one thing you can do is you can press download over here and then you will download it as a MP3 file I think and then you can press add over here then upload the same audio file that you just downloaded. Upload it back into here and then it will add it as a new source. So you can see the source being added over here and basically it will be transcribing the file and all its contents and basically once it's done you can click on this and then you can see the full transcript of basically everything that was said. So usually what I like to do is whenever I want to learn a vocab about a particular like concept or idea in Japanese then I would usually get a podcast made for that particular idea. And what I also like to do is because I want to maximize the amount of time that I'm listening to Japanese because the more time you spend over the language, the better you will get is for any YouTuber that I particularly like the concepts of um and they're just like talking. What I usually do is I copy the link to the video, go to notebook, press create new notebook over here, and then I choose a YouTube over here, paste the video link, press insert, and then I basically listen to like a summary of the exact same video, but in Japanese by going to audio overview, uh, choosing Japanese again, and then just saying explain in the style of a 13-year-old because that's like my current comprehension level. Press generate, and then I like to generate a couple of these in the morning and then listen to them throughout the day. So you can see the one that I said should be 70% Japanese and 30% English is done. So I can press play over here. — That specific moment and encounter. So you can see that it switches between Japanese and English. So after listening to whole thing, it doesn't do it exactly 70% 30% of the time. So you may in fact have to change your instructions a tiny bit to be like it should mostly be in English, mostly mean your target language or something in between. Now

the next AI tool is actually a free one made by me called AI language explainer and it's basically for ENI which is the flashc card program and if you read through the setup guide there's a video over here that shows you how to set up but basically the way it works is that if you have an open you can go to tools in the top go to add-ons over here and then you can press get add-ons type in the add-on code which is right over here then paste in the code but I already have the add-on installed and then I can go to tools go to AI language explainer go to settings then I can basically set up the add-on over here. You do have to use an OpenAI key and you can also use OpenAI for text speech or 11 Labs or uh voice box or IVA speech if you're doing Japanese for example. And then basically you go through the setup do the note type and stuff and then go to browse choose the flash card that you want and I'm going to choose this one over here. I can also select multiple by pressing shift and then go to edit go to batch generate AI explanations and then you can choose whether to generate the explanation text or explanation audio or both of them. Press okay over here and I can go through a sample of the flash cards. So for example, if I go to my deck over here. So you can see that I have the target word on the front over here. I have an example like sentence that the word is used in that I found online and then I have the explanation for that word that was just read out in the context of the sentence read out by like an AI text to speech. And the way that I set this up for my particular prompt is if I go to text generation over here the generation is write a short explanation of the word in curly brackets in the context of sentence. Write an explanation that helps a Japanese native who is around 13 years old understand the word and how it's used in the context as example. Phrase it as though you're explaining it to a friend. And then I have some more information over here. Basically, this entire prompt, you can see it's on this page over here. So, you can just copy it over. But the main thing is you want to set your age level over here. So, for me, it's like 13 years old. You can do like 5 years old, 7 years old, and so forth. And you may want to when you're first starting out with a new language, explain it in your native language. So that could be English for example or Spanish or something else. And then once you get to high enough level, you want to change the English part or whatever language you chose to the language you're going after. In this case, Japanese. And then you have more exposure to language in a way that's comprehensible. That will help you get even better faster. The next tool that I

also use is ChBT. And this basically helps me better understand some sentences. So for example, there's this word over here. I can look up this word in a search engine. So, for example, there's a search engine over here. And it shows me 204 like example sentences. This search engine is for Japanese, but I'm sure you can find ones in other languages. So, for example, I think there's also English as well. And if you go to English, then you can like search for any word. And you can search in all these other languages as well. Basically, when I'm a bit confused by a new sentence and I'm not sure how the words piece together in a way, I copy the sentence over, press paste, and then say, "Break this down in English. " But usually, I say, "Break it down in Japanese instead. " So, I'm going to say, "Break it down in Japanese. " And actually, because my listening level is much higher than my reading level, and I can also listen faster as well, I press read aloud over here, and then I listen to explanation aloud. But actually, I

think the voice here is pretty bad. So sometimes what I do is I copy this over and I go to a tool called Google AI studio and in Google AI studio you can go to a tab which is generate media over here and then over here you can use Gemini speech generation and for Japanese this is like really good because I've had natives say the same thing as well and this is the same speech generation that's used in NoBebook LM. So I can go to single speaker audio over here. No LM uses multipe audio. can go to single speak over here and then I can copy the thing that chat JPT gave me paste it over here and then I can change the tone that it's being read in over here so it's read aloud in a warm friendly tone I can choose a voice model over here and there are a lot of voice models over here with different styles and personalities and then you can press a run over here run prompt and then you can press download over here and download it to computer as well and I actually watched a video about this and at least for Japanese, it is really good because I've had new tab say the exact same thing. So, for example, this video over here, they compare like I think seven eight free AI tools for speech generation and they basically put like Gemini speech generation as number one. And then people in the comments are praising it as well because they're like, "Wow, this is amazing. Gemini speech generation. " But it depends on how good it is for your particular language. Maybe you should rely on a native speaker to actually compare it.

Something else that you can also do in Google AI Studio is that you can go to stream over here and then you can talk use your webcam or share your screen and then interact with an AI in the target language that you care about. So I can press webcam over here for example and then it will like use my FaceTime webcam. Press allow. Allow this time. And you can see me over here. And I can say, "Hey, can you only reply in Japanese from now on? " And describe what I'm holding up. And how about this? And I can press stop recording. And basically, you can have a fun time where you can interact with different objects. You can do this on your mobile phone even. And then basically have AI help you learn or teach you a language based on items around your house. And then you can also say something like only respond in the level of a 5-year-old or like a three-year-old would understand or something like that. And if you prefer, you can also press screen share instead. Do screen share and then choose anything on your computer and then have it explain that to you as well. So yeah, I

think that AI is making language learning really fun. It's getting easier than ever as well now to learn a new language thanks to AI tools that are available. I know like before the internet, learning a new language was pretty hard because there was a limited amount of resources available. Now with the internet and with YouTube, you can find like millions of videos in basically any language that you can dream of learning. And now I think with AI, it's becoming even easier. And hopefully all the free ways that I showed you just now of learning a new language are helpful to you. I will be making more videos like this whenever like a new tool comes along that can be useful for language learning and is also free to use as well. So if you do enjoy this kind of stuff, then do subscribe to the channel because I will be making more videos like this. And given that you're watching this video as well, it's likely that you're interested in the AI news and what the latest developments are. I actually made a mobile application called Tanza AI that basically like keeps you up to date with the latest AI news in the categories that you're interested in. Currently, it's available in English and Japanese, and there are audio briefings that are updated every couple hours, so you can listen to all the AI news and developments in the last 24 hours. So, if this seems interesting to you, then there's a download link below for both Android and iOS.