Hi @aran. Just been trying out the Basque course, and I have a couple of observations.
Firstly the web app didn’t seem to save my progress from yesterday. I’d only done a few minutes so not an immediate issue, but I wouldn’t want to start from the beginning every time.
Secondly, and more worryingly the course seems to go off the rails from about 9mins in and starts asking for whole sentences without building up the elements first e.g. asking for ‘I’m trying to remember the answer’ when the only word previously presented was the one for ‘answer’ (and that appeared for the first time as part of a complete sentence). ‘I’m trying’ and ‘to remember’ had not previously appeared.
I’m very excited to learn some Basque as this has been an ambition for ages. I like the new app and the voices are pretty good, but I’m going to struggle without the usual SSIW sequencing!
Thanks Phil - we’ll certainly get on it with trying to fix these, they’re absolutely not meant to be happening! I know that @Deborah-SSi is particularly interested in the Basque course
@philr the current Basque course is very much a first attempt and needs a lot of fine tuning. I’m currently going through it when I have time and Kai is making changes, but they’re not in the app that you can see yet. When we get a new version released, you should see a lot of difference.
Thanks Deborah. Not a complaint as I’m sure this stuff isn’t easy! Just wanted to give some (hopefully helpful) feedback. If you can get the SSI method working for Basque that would be amazing.
I’m so keen to do it, I have to restrain myself from just spending all day working on the Basque course but I can say that after I made a great list of things that needed to change in the early sentences, Kai and the AI really got to grips with it and made a huge improvement, so I’m hoping with the learning process for the AI as well, that there will be far fewer changes needed as I work through it.
Me too! I spent some time in the Basque country a year or so ago armed with about 10 words or so and had loads of positive interactions with people based just on that. I’d really like to speak more.
Is there an announcement somewhere when the courses get updated?
With these new courses, I’m not sure that anything ‘official’ is in place yet, but for the Basque I can certainly post here when I know that a new version has gone across.
Whereabouts were you in the Basque Country? I’ve just spent the weekend in the northern Basque Country, the French part, and it was fantastic hearing the Basque dialect from that area. I was surprised at how much I could understand, though I did have to let my ears “tune in” to the different accent for a little while.
We were walking the section of the Camino del Norte from Irun to Bilbao (recommended!). I can’t say I understood a lot, but it was great to be surrounded by the language - quite similar to being in Wales with the bilingual signage. I said ‘egun on’ to one elderly chap that we met & his eyes lit up and we didn’t get away for 15mins. I think he’d decided to teach us the whole language in one go. Not sure how much I took in but it was very enjoyable!
I rely on Kai to communicate with the Claude agent - they seem to have a good working relationship - but as well as tidying up the examples, I’m explaining the rules/patterns behind them, so the AI can specifically learn from that and apply it more widely. It will be interesting to see how well it does.
There are some fabulous walks in the Basque Country - we’re quite spoilt for beautiful countryside. Where I live in Vitoria-Gasteiz, it’s not exactly a hub of Basque language, but it’s growing and I hear more and more in the street, often between young parents and their children, which is very encouraging.
but I can say that after I made a great list of things that needed to change in the early sentences, Kai and the AI really got to grips with it and made a huge improvement, so I’m hoping with the learning process for the AI as well, that there will be far fewer changes needed as I work through it.
- but as well as tidying up the examples, I’m explaining the rules/patterns behind them, so the AI can specifically learn from that and apply it more widely. It will be interesting to see how well it does.