Some programmers just want to believe. For whatever godforsaken reason YouTube has started to auto-translate some video titles from English into German. I bet my life on it, that the people who implemented this speak no second language on a sufficient level. No one who speaks the output language got asked. It's pure terror for the sake of terror. No one speaks or writes like that, except for a machine. They side with the machine. And I hate them for that! I can't even vote with my clicks. It's on channels I have subscribed. They will see my click, will see number go up and say "see the user wants it! The machine is always right!"

Sorry to hijack your thread. Had to get it of my chest. :-(

A lot people on HN got their early programming chops from Stack Overflow and spotty internet tutorials, and have made the mistake of thinking that everything else can also be learned this way.

I'm describing how I learned Spanish.

Spanish is not a programming language.

I'm neither, but I tried learning Spanish from a "language teacher" and it didn't work. I'm not alone. I've spoke to dozens who had the same experience.

Years later I learned from people with the same method I described.

The AI models (large LANGUAGE models) of today seem very close to replicating that experience.

Try telling ChatGPT with voice mode "let us talk about X in [pick language]... Correct me when I'm wrong and explain why".

I'm curious where you think it's failing.

What do you feel is missing to replicate a good language teacher?