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Duolingo Bots — AI-powered characters to teach language conversation
Duolingo Bots are powered by artificial intelligence and react differently to thousands of possible answers.
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Melissa Monte
I just spent 15 minutes more engrossed in this than I've ever been in a language app.
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Such a great use case for bots, and a natural way to learn. Much like VR, I predict bots will become really useful for generating real-life environment best suited for training and educational purpose.
Can NOT wait for the FB Messenger version! @duolingo @jckmgn @steve_ridout @luisvonahn @tylrmurphy @jckmgn
One of the best application for bots I've seen. Great news for the education industry
What a great idea!
The AI bots is the next big thing! Probably in the near future we will be able to do anything from our favorite messaging apps!
Hi, ProductHunt! This is Jack from Duolingo. Today, we're incredibly excited to announce a new feature called Bots - the most advanced way to learn a language. From grabbing a slice of pizza to hailing a taxi, Bots prepare you for real-life conversations — minus the awkwardness and anxiety.
Learning to speak a new language is not only daunting: it’s also inaccessible to most language learners. In most classrooms, the majority of the time is spent in silence listening to teachers, so speaking practice is reserved to those who can afford to travel abroad or hire personal tutors. Furthering Duolingo’s mission of making language education accessible to all, Bots are here to democratize conversation.
We like to think of the Bots as your virtual language tutors - they'll never judge you, they're available on demand and their level of conversation is tailored to your language proficiency.
We're so excited to finally share this with the world and as always, the Duolingo team is here to answer any questions you may have.
@jckmgn Is that only restricted to the English version of the App? I don't see the feature in the French version to learn Spanish... anyway great use case for a chat bot, very smart guys!
@jckmgn wow really cool, i think you should integrate this as it matures as part of earning points towards a language is having to finish a conversation with one of the bots
@jckmgn This is maybe one of the most practical uses of bots of seen to date. Fantastic news and congratulations!
@adhambad One does earn XP toward your daily goal in case there was a confusion there. One quality chat equated to two lessons worth of XP in my tests.
Glad to see someone built this. It seems like the most natural and fluid way of learning a language, just like having a conversation with a native speaker. Looking forward to trying it out!
I agree this is one of the best uses of bots I've seen so far. Many new language learners are afraid to actually speak what they've learned and this removes a lot of that barrier. Is there an inherent difficulty in programming bots to converse in let's say Korean or Chinese compared to Spanish or French? I'm picking up Korean myself and would love to try this out (since I've forgotten most of my high school Spanish :P) @jckmgn @luisvonahn
@davidsfeng It appears that the chats are heavily scripted meaning that they had to hand code what the conversations would be like. Although they do use AI to help understand your responses they aren't general purpose. This means that you'll likely have to wait until they finish developing the scripts for those languages.
This makes learning Spanish much, much more fun and effective. Great job Duolingo team!
I have always wanted try and improve my spanish but feel like I never have the time. This might motivate me to get back on it!
I'm definitely a fan of this approach to learning a language. I've been part of a WhatsApp group in Sydney of South American people and following their chats has been super helpful in understanding Spanish. I find it helps to understand what people are saying more so than speaking the language though. I used Duolingo bots last night - not sure if it incorporates voice or not yet, but I think once it does that will be another great feature.
Any plans to converse based on your current skill level? I was quite taken aback by some intermediate Spanish sentences which I had no answer for. Felt a little frustrating.