All posts tagged: Language learning

Google’s new ‘Speaking practice’ feature uses AI to help users improve their English skills

Google’s new ‘Speaking practice’ feature uses AI to help users improve their English skills

Published by skeptic

Google is testing a new “Speaking practice” feature in Search that helps users improve their conversational English skills. The company told TechCrunch that the feature is available to English learners in Argentina, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Venezuela who have joined Search Labs, its program for users to experiment with early-stage Google Search experiences. The company says the goal of the experiment is to help improve a user’s English skills by getting them to take part in interactive language learning exercises powered by AI to help them use new words in everyday scenarios. Speaking practice builds on a feature that Google launched last October that is designed to help English learners improve their skills. While the feature launched last year allows English learners to practice speaking sentences in context and receive feedback on grammar and clarity, Speaking practice adds in the dimension of back and forth conversational practice. The feature was first spotted by an X user, who shared screenshots of the functionality in action. Speaking practice works by asking the user a conversational question …

The Most Fun Way to Learn a Language

The Most Fun Way to Learn a Language

Published by skeptic

Until a few years ago, I couldn’t speak Spanish without sounding about half a century older—and much more religious—than I am. The language is the first one I learned, but I was taught it primarily by my Dominican grandmother, a woman so pious that she routinely brags about her prayer regimen bruising her knees. Consequently, I wouldn’t say I was going to the grocery store without a compulsory “God willing”—si Dios quiere. My grandma helped raise me in the Dominican Republic, but I moved to the U.S. as a child, where I mostly spoke English. So I wasn’t aware of how I sounded in Spanish until adulthood, when I returned to Santo Domingo and tried to socialize beyond my grandmother’s milieu. Around people my age, I struggled to approximate a personality. In an attempt to fit in, I self-imposed reggaeton studies, at the remedial level. The Dembow artist Kiko El Crazy got me up to date on la pámpara (roughly, “It’s lit” or “extremely good,” in English). The rapper and singer Bad Bunny gave me …