Hello friends,

In one of my last columns I wrote about how learning a language cannot be replaced by technology, so, this time, I will write on how the internet and AI can, however, help us learn a language!

First of all I’d like to talk about good old Google Translate. This tool has improved very much over the years and, although it still won’t give you a perfect translation, it can serve as an excellent starting point to learn new words and expressions. I often use it to get an idea of the overall meaning of a sentence and then look up the dictionary and grammar book to see the details.

Another tool that I recently discovered is Quillbot. It’s an AI tool that translates and helps you write texts, but mostly I find it interesting for its ‘Paraphraser’ function, which gives you an alternative to any given or self-composed text. It still makes mistakes, but it’s a very easy way to analyze and reshape any text, in many different languages.

Finally I tried out a chat-bot, specifically Bing. It can give you short and simple answers to your language questions, as well as generate material for your study. Theoretically it can also act as a conversation partner, but it’s a little dry and in my opinion it still feels like writing questions into any search engine.

What do you think? Are you using some of these tools already? Have you any personal methods for using translators and AI when studying a language? I'm interested in hearing about your experience with them.