johnbeers.xyz

First things first, let's get this out of the way now: I am not a huge fan of AI, LLMs, or whatever you want to refer to them as. I don't like the fact that it's being shoehorned into everything, and I don't like how they scrape information without any regard for the licensing of that information. There's also the energy consumption concern. But all of that is a different conversation. It's not what I want to talk about today.

For quite a while, I have been learning German informally. I used apps like Duolingo and Memrise, listened to podcasts, read low-level dual-language books, and tried watching shows on Netflix with the native audio. Considering the slow pacing, I'm proud to say my reading level is around B1. On the other hand, my speaking and writing are not as solid.

At the beginning of October, I decided that I would begin to do two things. One was a shift in how I was consuming media. Hearing the German dialogue was good, but leaving the subtitles in English wasn't forcing me to think. Therefore, I started watching whatever I could with both the audio and subtitles in German. I also started changing the language in the video games I was playing. This has been helpful with immersion, but the second thing I did has been the most helpful.

I started keeping a daily journal (ein Tagebuch) completely in German. My goal was to write 3-5 sentences about everyday events: what I ate, what I did at work, things I did with my family. You get the idea. This has definitely been a step in the right direction, and I'm already feeling more confident in my writing. The biggest boost though came from my decision to use AI for feedback on grammar and native flow. As a large language model, it can be very good at providing this type of feedback.

My workflow has been this:

1. Write an original journal entry in German using Eloquent to get immediate proofreading feedback.
2. Open up Copilot and say something to the effect of I am using journaling to improve my written German and am around A2/B1. Please critique this entry for grammar and native flow. and paste in my entry.
3. Copilot then provides specific feedback on things like verb placement or tense as well as suggesting more native, idiomatic phrasing. Sometimes, the meaning changes somewhat, and I have to tell it what I was really trying to say. Anyone who has experimental with tools like this knows how that works though.
4. Once I have a good revision, I copy both entries into a Nextcloud note so that I can review the differences later.

What makes this even more useful is not just the corrections to my entry. It's the explanation of why the changes were made. This is especially helpful when I'm trying to understand a new concept. Getting immediate feedback like "Your sentences are written well and perfectly understandable. However, a native German would say this instead..." is like getting personalized tutoring rather than being in a classroom. For me, at least, it's been very useful.

In short, AI isn't going to solve the world's problems, and it isn't going to replace all the programmers. It's just a tool like all the others that humans have invented, and as such, can find its place alongside those tools. Just remember to interface with actual humans now and again. That's important, too.