I'm in my 4th year living in Denmark as an expat, and I finally decided it’s time to properly learn Danish. I do have a Danish girlfriend, after all. One way I’ve been practicing is by trying to text only in Danish, but I often find myself stuck. I start my message in Danish, then hit a wall because I don’t know a word or how to fit something naturally into the sentence.
Especially in those cases, I used to give up and translate the entire message from English, which kind of defeats the purpose and interrupts the learning process.
So I started prompting GPT. I’d write my message with wildcards or notes for the parts I didn’t know, and it would return a corrected version. That worked well, but reusing the prompt each time became tedious.
So I built a wrapper around it.
Now I can type in the target language, mark unclear parts with curly braces {like this}, and get an instant corrected version with explanations. I also added a history feature so I can review what I got wrong, and I plan to build more on that soon (eg. summary of areas or words to review).
This app is for language learners who want to practice writing without feeling insecure about mistakes or breaking their flow by switching to a translator.
I hope you find it useful!
optionalsquid18 days ago
This is an interesting idea.
But, besides not being able to use your site due to the errors mentioned by other posters, both the examples on your website give me pause:
The example input "Kan you hjelmpe mig {yesterday}?" reads to me as "Can you help me yesterday?", but that's just a nonsense sentence and an odd choice for an example. The word for "help" is also misspelled, but presumably that would get corrected.
And the suggestion of "Jeg vil gerne handle i morgen" for "Jeg vil gerne go shopping i morgen", instead reads to me as "I would like to act tomorrow". A more idiomatic translation would be "Jeg vil gerne købe ind i morgen".
delusional16 days ago
> And the suggestion of "Jeg vil gerne handle i morgen" for "Jeg vil gerne go shopping i morgen", instead reads to me as "I would like to act tomorrow". A more idiomatic translation would be "Jeg vil gerne købe ind i morgen".
It's a little better, but I would never expect anyone to translate "shopping" to "købe ind". "købe ind" is about getting groceries for the week, shopping is about walking the strip and dreaming of buying random clothing. As a native speaker I'd be less surprised if the you just used the borrowed word "shopping" directly. Basically "Jeg vil gerne shoppe i morgen".
Blahah16 days ago
In British english at least, 'going shopping' is a normal way to say 'getting groceries for the week'.
klipt16 days ago
Yeah groceries is "shopping"
"walking the strip and dreaming of buying random clothing" is "window shopping"
poly2it16 days ago
In Swedish, shopping has been loaned to mean window shopping. Buying groceries is commonly called att handla.
ragazzina16 days ago
I think "go/do shopping" is the same in French, Spanish, Italian and German, as opposed to faire les courses / ir de compras / fare la spesa / einkaufen.
SoftTalker16 days ago
In US english (at least as I speak/understand it) "shopping" is any act of browsing/looking at/selecting something for purchase. It can be groceries, clothes, a car, anything really and it can be online or in person at a store.
"I'm going shopping" with no other specifics would normally mean "for groceries" or other general household supplies, though.
shermantanktop16 days ago
If a European language gained a new everyday word in the last fifty years, there’s a solid chance that it’s a loan word from English. A little odd to learn a “foreign” language filled with that stuff.
dmoy16 days ago
> European
It's not restricted to European languages. 贝果 is bagel, just sounded out phonetically, and 三明治 is sandwich.
Idk if there's anything super odd about it.
Of course, English is the worst offender of loan words. As someone else said somewhere, "[English doesn't] just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
Gung ho, monsoon, filibuster, herbivore, vacation, etc etc etc. Thousands upon thousands of loanwords.
dionian16 days ago
Fun fact, 99% of words ending in -tion are the exact same in French. Every English speaker has a head start of hundreds of word vocabulary in French.
stragies16 days ago
Those words also exist in Spanish, there the ending is "cion", and in Portuguese with ending "cão"
ElevenLathe16 days ago
And in Polish: -cja. Lots of languages have had a deep relationship with Latin, not just Romance languages.
palata16 days ago
On the other hand, English is a Germanic language and got influenced by French. A nice recent article talked about why English doesn't use accents (because... of French) [1].
Just to say it's not uncommon at all to have languages influence each other.
[1]: https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/why-english-doesnt-use...
piva0016 days ago
With Scandinavian languages it went full circle, there are lots of everyday English words stemming from old Norse :)
DataDaoDe16 days ago
yes, a lot indeed. Even some very rare adoptions that almost never happen in languages (like the pronoun they). My most favorite has to be window though from the Old Norse vindauga (vind = wind, auga = eye).
liotier16 days ago
Same in French. When my colleagues tell me about "le repository Git", I love to answer about "le repositoire git" - sounds mightily quaint but that French word is actually the one through which the Latin repositorium percolated to English.
BurningFrog16 days ago
As a Swede, I can recognize the norse root of most English word for things that existed 1000 years ago.
ge9616 days ago
radicalbyte16 days ago
You'll love Flanders.
lil_csomop18 days ago
Hey, thank you for your input! I definitely have to improve the example texts and make sure that the way the tool should be used is better understood!
dkga16 days ago
Interesting use case. By coincidence I am also learning Danish quite intensively. What I do (and that tends to work for me) is the following:
- I try to actively write something and when I hit a wall, I try in other languages: the important in this part is to get the text flowing from me. Eg, "du could har hjælpe mig, når jeg called du" (trying to write in Danish, "you could have helped me when I called you")
- I then paste it on ChatGPT and ask for a C2-level correction with explanations on vocabulary and grammar, and translations into a few other languages. Eg, my prompt would be """ "du could har hjælpe mig, når jeg called du"
correct to c2-level and explain grammar and vocabulary. give related examples. then translate to German, English, French and Italian. """
This is incredibly helpful to do everyday, especially if you are also learning passively by reading/studying by yourself. By the way, for those curious, here's how ChatGPT would correct the sentence: "Du kunne have hjulpet mig, da jeg ringede til dig." Interestingly, it assumed I meant "called" as in, "telephoned" (not my original intention). Translating into other languages helps you spot and get a sensibility for such cases.
As an aside, for me the most challenging part of learning Danish is the pronunciation. It's beautiful, but it doesn't map out too easily to written words :)
rasmus-kirk16 days ago
> As an aside, for me the most challenging part of learning Danish is the pronunciation. It's beautiful...
As a Dane, all I have to say is; lol
BurningFrog16 days ago
The peoples of Sweden and Norway stand behind you on the pronunciation issue!
Alex-Programs18 days ago
This is really cool!
I've done a lot of research into LLM translation for my product[0], and I'm currently working on a deep translation service that provides reliably human-level translations.
I don't know what model you're using, but GPT-4.1 is probably the best for your use case - it's in the top few % for nearly every language, and has a low standard deviation, while also being relatively low latency and low cost.
lil_csomop18 days ago
Thank you so much for the suggestion! I'll later also check out your app!
gaoshan16 days ago
It doesn't seem to work with "any language", as claimed. It cannot process Chinese writing (nor can it process pinyin). "Error processing your text", is the message. Though it's certainly possible the volume of traffic has overwhelmed things and it would work under normal circumstances?
Sayrus16 days ago
I tried with Korean and had the same thought but English seems to trigger the error as well as I'd say the poor app received HN hug of death.
cjohnson31816 days ago
I tried Spanish. I wanted to test a few words that are different in Spain versus Mexico. I didn't get any results for anything I tired.
ks204816 days ago
> works with any language
Does it work in Tojolab'al (Mayan language spoken by 70,000 in Chiapas)?
I get mildly irked by apps saying they work in "all/any" language. Obviously, it works in whatever languages ChatGPT "knows". Although for marketing, I understand the former is easier to say.
fwiw - ChapGPT acts like it knows these kinds of low-resource languages, but it's difficult to tell how much of it is just hallucinating. (I am trying to do work in this area).
ljlolel16 days ago
First, I applaud you building something and encourage it.
Next, I want to say I don’t understand these llm “apps”. I tried this in ChatGPT with the minimal prompt (that you can keyboard shortcut) “fill in curly” and it gave me exactly the correct full sentence plus even better alternatives.
Why would I use a separate app?
In general why would I use any of these separate apps vs my included ChatGPT that I’ll have a button away with included unlimited subscription
bluerooibos16 days ago
I imagine once this app becomes more mature, it'll have more options and functionality around its specific use-case, and tailored UX.
ChatGPT just has a text input and output. They can't build ChatGPT to have the perfect UX for every single eventuality. TLDR - UX, convenience, and ease of use.
ljlolel15 days ago
ChatGPT can literally build its UX on the fly
kubb16 days ago
> Why would I use a separate app?
It's not about whether you'd use it or not. It's just so that people have something to build, managers have tasks to distribute, and the machine can keep on turning.
tokai16 days ago
Not to be nag but the example translation at the bottom of the page is not correct. Shopping is a word used in danish.[0] The translation with the word handle does not correctly convey the suggestion of going out to multiple stores looking at clothes etc. to buy. It more comes across as wanting to go buy groceries, or doing some kind of general commerce.
A translation to standard spoken danish would be jeg vil gerne shoppe i morgen.
merelysounds16 days ago
I entered the text that was present in the placeholder, but I got an error message: "Unable to process correction Error processing your text. Please try again."
Quick feedback, the idea sounds interesting to me and I wanted to learn more. Feature request: more examples, or cached examples that would still work if the server crashes.
radicalbyte16 days ago
Take an intensive course. That's what I did to learn Dutch with my Dutch then girlfriend (now wife and mother of our kids). Intense, focussed and I was fluent at a higher level than many natives within a year (which says more about 50% of the country than it does me, but I digress).
throwaway63863716 days ago
What was the time/format of this course?
nudgeOrnurture16 days ago
[dead]
jmpavlec18 days ago
Tried it with some Dutch, only getting "Unable to process correction" errors. Good idea but seems it need a bit more error handling.
lil_csomop18 days ago
Hey yeah, I have ran out of API credits due to popular demand! Sorry that you couldn't try it this time :(
mrweasel16 days ago
That the modern way of getting out of office messages on Welsh signs. See: https://imgur.com/a/Vr3WGKp
Jotalea9 days ago
Not to hate or anything but, the site didn't work at all. I thought "hmm, maybe it's not made to handle non-ascii characters, but that's a very rare problem to have", so I switched to another language that used only ascii characters but it still didn't work. I guess it simply fails.
lil_csomop18 days ago
It seems that my GPT credits have been deplated, thus the error :) Sorry about that! I decided that if I do ran out, I will continue the development - showing that is has popularity!
In the meantime, I am at work, so I don't think I can add the rate limiting now... but thank you for everyone for the input!
ledauphin16 days ago
it would presumably require quite a large rework of what you have, but you could imagine a version of this where the client was talking to the APIs, so that people could input their own API keys without sending them anywhere.
the core idea here is really cool, and the UX is (or seems like it would be) impressive - no need to select a language, for instance.
Good luck getting it back on its feet!
0xbadcafebee16 days ago
Sounds cool!
(Why doesn't ChatGPT make something like this, essentially plugins, for their web interface? You make a script with macros and put that on a "Marketplace" and people can run it... would remove the need for setting up a whole nother website just to wrap around prompts)
sunbum18 days ago
In the example text hjelmpe is not a word in Danish.
zamadatix18 days ago
I assume the stuff about the AI giving corrections might apply to more than just what's in curly braces, i.e. that this might be intentional, but I'm unable to test due to a "Unable to process correction" error on the demo.
[deleted]18 days agocollapsed
lil_csomop18 days ago
Haha, nope, that's just a genuine typo! :D Good catch!
clw816 days ago
A long time ago, before SEO spam, I would Google parts of what I had written phrase by phrase (with proper nouns removed or generalized) and if the number of results was under a certain threshold, I'd assume I was wrong.
pmdr16 days ago
I found https://ludwig.guru to be a good replacement for that. But, yes, Google sucked a lot less back then & you even got relevant & longer search suggestions. Someone had to 'fix' that. Everything for the bottom line.
vanrohan15 days ago
I made something along the same lines, but just targeting WhatsApp Web specifically. I came up with the idea when I ended up in a WhatsApp group chat that was very MultiLingual. So this allowed me to participate in the conversation. It's also been handy to talk to contractors and service providers. https://ai-polyglot.com
BWStearns16 days ago
Me and my wife made something very similar (https://nativi.sh/). I find it's a really good use case for LLMs to actually help you learn rather than doing everything for you.
Also, not sure if you're getting hugged to death but I'm getting this in the interface but not seeing any network failures.
``` Unable to process correction
Error processing your text. Please try again. ```
rickcarlino16 days ago
I did a similar thing with a personal spaced repetition system I am building. Instead of braces I used ?question marks? and I added daily writing quota to force myself to write instead of going straight to card reviews.
https://github.com/RickCarlino/KoalaCards
(You must add cards before accessing writing)
gregorvand16 days ago
Interesting idea. Also got errors.
That withstanding, surely having the user select what their target language is, would help with processing and accuracy? It's a one time lift for the user, and would ensure I'm definitely getting back my target language, not a dialect or totally different (norwegian/swedish come to mind immediately)
kkoste18 days ago
Really good idea.
I also really like the name.
Maybe add a language selector such that the AI has a better context of what language the user is interested in.
lil_csomop18 days ago
Thank you! Yes, I think that would be the best really, so the AI has an easier time.
lil_csomop18 days ago
Also, yes the TTS doesn't work yet - I decided to share the MVP first before adding my Google billing account :P
gus_massa18 days ago
I got an error. Is it working now?
lil_csomop18 days ago
For this MVP, I decided I will not add it yet - I just wanted to grasp how interesting people would think it is :) I will however soon add it, joined with rate limiting!
robobro16 days ago
Doesn't seem to work for Bahasa Indonesia, #10 most spoken language in the world[1]. What a shame!
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num...
netsharc16 days ago
Why don't you just call it "Indonesian"...
If it didn't work for German and I said "Doesn't work for deutsch", would you hear the pretentiousness?
ngokevin16 days ago
Wow, we're on the same page. I'm making a language app specifically for couples https://couplingcafe.com ... about to release a version focused on chat that has translator support as well
How has it been since you been using your tool?
Aro_oj18 days ago
First of all, 10 points for the dedication and perseverance! The website looks super professional and promising. What other languages can it help with? I am planning to learn Arabic. Also, are there options to choose between different dialects of a language?
lil_csomop18 days ago
Hey! It should work with all the languages as it auto-detect the target and the source language - however, it might need to be tuned the bit. Eg. if you write in arabic but use English wildcards, it should work okay! About the dialects actually I haven't thought of! I think you can provide it as context, however it's probably limited to what GPT knows as I don't integrate with any official trasnlators as of now :) Interesting use-case!
xingped18 days ago
Well I broke it immediately, haha. Sorry about that. Apparently it doesn't like Chinese.
syndeo16 days ago
Same, ha. I think he ran out of API credits actually, in my case at least.
codingbuddy16 days ago
Nice one! I've been doing something similar with GPT to help learn Spanish:
Whenever I type something in Spanish you translate what I think I meant into English, point out my mistakes if any, and also respond with the corrected sentence
dudeinjapan16 days ago
I am wondering if it will work for my girlfriend. She speaks English.
csomar16 days ago
You just posted this two days ago? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44549549
bhaney16 days ago
Same post probably got second-chance-pooled
laborcontract16 days ago
It's odd that it got second chanced pooled. It was on the front page a couple days ago. Also, the site didn't work a back then and it doesn't work now.
veqq16 days ago
> because I don't know a word
You haven't used a dictionary (app)? Put the word you want in, then use one of the options in your Danish sentence and continue.
Daviey16 days ago
This is nice, but what I'd really like is native integration with tools such as WhatsApp. Sadly, being closed source we can't help with this.
pentacent_hq16 days ago
Just a small comment: The textarea has a white background and almost white text for me on iOS (dark mode), so it's not readable at all there.
Jeremy102616 days ago
Same on macOS (dark mode).
zersiax16 days ago
This is a really cool concept :) Generally in language learning it's a good idea to try to "think" in the language as much as you can so you get creative about how to phrase something with the words you do have, but if that fails, particularly when you're just starting out this is a great motivational aid and conversation starter if nothing else :) I would definitely recommend integrating with an established translator like DeepL as well as a kind of second correction as AI does get things wrong and having the two versions can help compare what may have gone wrong, you can probably keep your autodetecting language bit as well as I am pretty sure DeepL supports language identification and if not, I know Google does. Good luck with learning Danish, I tried my hand at it a few years back but have switched to Finnish as of early this year
anonymousiam16 days ago
I wonder with OpenAI will do with the transcripts of the chats with your girlfriend after they've been shared with them...
misha59916 days ago
Also got an error :/ but excited to lean on this as a supplement to the Hindi conversational lessons I've been taking!
bryanhogan16 days ago
What is the difference between this and using something like a ChatGPT project and giving it the same pre-set instructions?
ks204816 days ago
Copy and paste this comment into 50% of modern "Show HN" posts.
wodenokoto16 days ago
Why is the suggested input misspelled? Is it because it is supposed to help with misspellings?
whycome16 days ago
you should make it clear that it works in any language. the name makes one think that it's a specific language (and the example as well).
though right now maybe you reached an api limit or something because any french i type comes out with an error
manyone118 days ago
i tried a simple "donde (bus station)?" but i got an error about an invalid text
sgt16 days ago
Just getting an error: Unable to process correction
hoppp15 days ago
I need to learn danish too. Yay
schwartzworld16 days ago
Doesn't work for Armenian.
lormayna15 days ago
My wife is Danish, we are together since most than 10 years and I never learn anything that the real basic words (tak, skol, etc.). I tried so many apps, courses, etc. to learn Danish, but always struggling with pronunciation.
I will try also that, it seems a good idea.
And good luck with your Danish learning journey :)
tomtickoffai12 days ago
Slick!
dmead16 days ago
wow fancy guy with a girlfriend
v5v316 days ago
"we don't believe you, post a pic of her holding a sign saying Hi HN".
adamgusky16 days ago
Super cool
[deleted]16 days agocollapsed
paulbjensen16 days ago
Great idea and very well executed.
... Now for the hard challenge - try and speak Danish :)
asimpleusecase16 days ago
I’m sure she is a lovely person, but I don’t really have a need to text your girlfriend.
MengerSponge16 days ago
Shades of "this guy's wife" from 8 years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/5c79n0/you_can_h...
mmwako16 days ago
[flagged]
IncreasePosts16 days ago
[flagged]
parpfish16 days ago
I really hate the term “expat”
tomhow16 days ago
Please don't complain about tangential annoyances... They're too common to be interesting.
polotics16 days ago
Expatriate used to precisely mean someone on a mission from their company to a foreign office of that company. Those that use the term to reflect the fact they emigrated conveniently paint themselves bright-white. Kudos for the cosmopolitan courage, but please do learn a bit more...
sekai16 days ago
> I really hate the term “expat”
Yeah, separating themselves from those “dirty” immigrants
[deleted]16 days agocollapsed
sneak16 days ago
At least it’s better than parsing it using regular expressions.
Cupprum16 days ago
Whats wrong with it?
IggleSniggle16 days ago
It generally means that while you live somewhere permanently with no timeline on returning "home," you do not allow yourself to think of your new country as "home."
It comes across as a refusal to immigrate. It means that what you care about is that you are no longer living "at home," rather than caring about assimilating with your new home.
It's like going to a new place and identifying yourself as an "emigrant" instead of an "immigrant."
"Patriation" is about giving away authority so that the other country assumes authority. "Expatriate," then, would be that authority of the old country no longer applies, with no acknowledgement of your new circumstances.
Oh here's a good one; what if you got married, divorced, and married again? You would be an ex-husband or ex-wife, and it would be entirely appropriate for someone to refer to you as such in certain contexts, but it would be really off-putting...especially to your new spouse.
Imagine introducing yourself as an "ex-husband." If you're with a bunch of your ex-wife's old friends and associates, then it might make sense to introduce yourself this way under some circumstances...but usually, even then, it would be far more polite and in better taste to introduce yourself in some other way.
Much better to clarify your former relationship only when it's pertinent, and maybe even then "we lived together for awhile" might be a gentler framing. Otherwise, you are simply drawing attention to your divorce, and to what purpose?
[deleted]16 days agocollapsed
triceratops16 days ago
> It's like going to a new place and identifying yourself as an "emigrant" instead of an "immigrant."
All immigrants are emigrants, and vice versa. You have to emigrate from someplace in order to immigrate somewhere.
IggleSniggle16 days ago
Correct. So, you can emphasize your new identity as an "emigrant from A" or as an "immigrant to B." "Expat" goes one step further by not only emphasizing that you are an emigrant from A, but also that you are no longer a political participant or under the authority of A. It is not semantically incorrect to call yourself an "expat" if you are an expat, nor would it be semantically incorrect to call yourself an emigrant from A or an immigrant to B.
I'm attempting to pin down why some people might feel that someone calling themselves an "expat" has some negative connotations for the expat. It doesn't have anything to do with the correctness of any of the terms involved.
To say it a different way, I think people find it distasteful because it focuses on the political shapes you no longer are bound to, rather than who you are "now." It's normal to celebrate your cultural heritage, but it's kind of odd to focus on your status as a non-member of your former state.
parpfish16 days ago
You’re not going to find an answer to this by parsing out the technical definitions of the words. It’s about how the words are used and the connotations they have developed over time.
IggleSniggle15 days ago
I agree that it's about usage and connotations over time..isn't that what etymology is at the end of the day?
bossyTeacher16 days ago
I agree with the above. It does imply a refusal to accept the fact that you are now living somewhere else (ie your new home country)
probably_wrong16 days ago
My take is that "expat" immediately indicates that someone has no intention to stay for good (unlike immigrants) and that they'll leave as soon as it's convenient because of course they won't stay here for good. It implies a mild disdain for the local culture - the person has no intention to integrate and, more often than not, will self-segregate into the expat bubble.
parpfish16 days ago
It’s a term that wealthy people use so they don’t have to say that they’re an “immigrant”
FearNotDaniel16 days ago
Really? I tend to associate it more with bourgeois folks who are well-off but certainly not wealthy, but most definitely want to remain in their own cultural bubble and do everything to avoid learning the local language or integrating with the society of their host country. “Little Britain” types basically. I tend to steer clear of them in my adopted corner of the EU.
richardwhiuk16 days ago
I think both.
emptyfile16 days ago
[dead]
adrianlzt16 days ago
[dead]
nudgeOrnurture16 days ago
[dead]
saltserv16 days ago
[dead]