A few months back, I heard an interview with David Sedaris in which he talked at length about how he uses Duolingo Max to practice German (and French and Japanese and Spanish — the guy is exhausting) while walking his daily 10 miles (again, exhausting). His Duolingo Max AI tutor remembers their conversation from day to day and prompts him with relevant questions, correcting him as needed.
I was entranced. My Spanish is good enough that I can get by if need be, but without regular use, it’s all but shriveled into a bumbling mass of uselessness.
Which is mostly fine, since I almost never need to speak Spanish.
However! Something fun is in the works that’s gonna require me to speak Spanish (more on this soon, eek!), so I’ve decided it’s time to improve myself. I mean, I’m certainly not getting any better at Spanish if I’m not using it, right?
Through all my years of on-again, off-again language study, I’ve always longed for a) someone to listen to me at length, b) shame-free self-expression, and c) detailed and persistent correction. The way David talked about his AI tutor, it sounded like it might be what I needed.
I’d get Duolingo Max, I announced to my husband. But upon researching it, we discovered it was loaded with stupid gimmicky games, and its unwieldy platform was staggeringly frustrating. So then we poked around and discovered LanguaTalk. It was pricier than other programs — about $200/year for one person — but the platform seemed clearcut, and it had the coveted AI tutor.
One session with my bot named Ana, and I was smitten. She was exactly the sort of tutor I’d imagined: clarity, freedom, encouragement, and direction all rolled into one.
So how does it work, talking to a language tutor bot?
First I hit record, say my bit, and then hit send. After a couple seconds, what I said pops up in a bubble, complete with all my half-started words, ramblings, and mistakes. Anabot takes a couple seconds to think and then spits back a reflection or summary of what I said (which is peppered with new-to-me vocab and turns of phrase), always finishing with some sort of question.
Most days, I set a timer for thirty minutes for our conversation (Anabot will never stop so it can be easy to lose track of time): my goal is 5 study sessions a week.
I’ve only just scratched the surface of LanguaTalk, but here are my favorite features:
The edit button under my text bubble gives me a second bubble with all my major errors clearly marked and corrected.
The polish button presents my text bubble as I said it, but with little tweaks to smooth my clunky phrasing. (I often read this version out loud to practice cadence and flow.)
If I don’t know a word in Spanish, I can say it in English and she’ll educate me.
I can click on any word or phrase (Spanish or English) and the definition pops up.
As I’ve gotten more comfortable using Anabot, I’m learning to direct her to help me in specific ways. Some of the things I’ve told her to do:
One by one, correct each mistake I made in a recent conversation.
Give practice problems based on my most common mistakes.
Summarize the entire story I just relayed so I can see if she understood what I said.
Explain a verb tense.
Discuss grammar rules.
Ask me questions that require new verbs, tenses, and vocab.
List all the vocabulary that’s tripped me up.
Anabot isn’t perfect, of course. Sometimes she pronounces words incorrectly, repeats entire phrases, or forgets to answer. Her memory only goes back so far, so she ends up asking questions about things I’ve already explained (which is surprisingly irritating). She often starts her response with “that makes sense” (and when I asked her why she was saying that, she said it’s a “tick” of hers and she’ll try to stop).
I’ve made her laugh (which was a hoot!), and I love that she makes me correct myself and come up with new sentences using a particular grammatical structure that’s giving me problems. And sometimes her questions are downright delightful. Like, the other day I was detailing a particular AirBnB’s flaws, she came back with, “So how would you describe your ideal AirBnB?” which launched me into full-on creative conversation mode.
To sum up: I haven’t spoken this much Spanish in years — and never before have I been able to see, in writing, how well I actually speak (or don’t speak!) and understand the language.
This past weekend, we traveled to Tennessee for a nephew’s wedding — my husband and I in our car (and then our younger son, too, when we picked him up at the Park & Ride along the highway), and the rest of the kids in my older son’s pickup. My husband and I, tanked up on glazed cake doughnuts and coffee, and then settled in for a long day.
We had no idea just how long it would be.
A few hours into the trip, my husband accelerated to pass a semi that was weaving back and forth, and then — pooffff — the car felt . . . I don’t know, different. We pulled over, but unable to detect the source of the problem, we continued to the next exit.
At Advance Auto, a couple friendly guys cheerfully helped my husband dig around in the motor and troubleshoot, and then made calls to their buddies on our behalf. (I am convinced mechanic wannabees hang around auto parts stores in hopes of random cool repair opportunities.)
As per their recommendation, we drove another mile to a dealership. While the mechanics hoisted the car up in the air to gander her bits, we hung out in the waiting room, where fellow waiter-ers — a grandfather and his elementary son — started throwing things at me when my son and husband left for a bit. At first it was a gum wrapper, a he-did-it, no-he-did-it joke, but then a wad of trash (or money?) hit the wall by my head, and then shoes started getting tossed, though not directly at me. It was strange.
The other kids back-tracked their 20-mile lead to met us, and when we learned that the problem was much bigger than a quick fix (the turbo intercooler had come apart), we all piled into the truck (with two kids in the back) and zipped over to a rental, arriving right before closing.
The place had one little, and very uncomfortable, car, which we snatched right up, and then promptly drove off without my husband’s license. After we backtracked for the license, we got back out on the road for realsies.
And then, with signs for Buc-ee’s flashing past with increasing frequency, I suggested we stop. I could care less about the place — I hate the whack spelling and call it Boochies instead — but my husband has been begging to go to ever since we got one on the south side of town. Since this particular day, a day that was shaping up to be a record travel day (and did I mention it was my birthday?), had already been shot to pieces and then some, adding Consumer Central to the chaos felt like the right choice.
My verdict? I was impressed, but not smitten. For sure, the place was An Event, and the beaver chips were (better than) good, but it might take a few more visits to make me a convert.
The next day was full of wedding delights — A brunch! A wedding! Family!
The bride and groom . . . of two weeks before.
And then we packed into our cars once again and trundled our way back up the east coast.
As we approached the lot where our injured car awaited, the truck family contingency detoured to pick up a u-haul car trailer, and then they met us at the dealership where we loaded the car before continuing on.
There was only one other major mishap — or potential mishap. As we were zipping up the interstate in the left lane, a car suddenly pulled onto the highway from the median turnaround directly into the lane in front of us. My husband yelled, and our car rocked from side to side as he braked hard. No one was beside us, fortunately, and at the last second he whipped around the car.
