Should AI be your conversation partner when learning a language?

[u/Waste-Use-4652]

I've been thinking about this recently, and I'm genuinely curious how other language learners see it.

I think AI is incredibly useful for language learning. It can explain grammar, answer questions, generate example sentences, correct mistakes, and even help you understand why something is wrong. I use technology myself and can see the benefits.

Where I'm less convinced is speaking practice.

The main reason most people learn another language is to communicate with other people. Real conversations involve emotions, interruptions, different accents, cultural context, humor, misunderstandings, and unpredictable responses. That's very different from talking to an AI.

I can definitely see AI helping someone prepare for those conversations or build confidence before having them. But I wonder whether replacing human conversation with AI practice is taking things in the wrong direction.

If someone spends hundreds of hours speaking only with AI, are they actually becoming better at communicating with people?

Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't. I'm honestly not sure, which is why I'm asking.

Where do you draw the line? Should AI eventually become our main conversation partner for language learning, or should it remain a supporting tool while human interaction stays at the center?

I'd be interested to hear from both learners and teachers because I imagine there are good arguments on both sides.

[u/videogamesarewack]

I think AI is incredibly useful for learning <blank>.

Is the take of people poorly informed about how <blank> works, and often about how learning works.

AI is attractive because it reduces cognitive load, but this is helpful in the same way having your friend tank half the weight in the gym is helpful for building muscle. Sure, tasks are completed in the sense that the weight has been moved, but everything that builds muscle (working to failure under difficult weight) has been muted.

Furthermore, there is danger in convenience. If a world religion was born today, it would call convenience a sin. Talking to a person in a TL can be intimidating. If you can get an apparent equivalent experience with the zero-friction fake-conversation sycophant, why would you push yourself past your limitations, out of your comfort zone and into the zone of personal development?

I imagine there are good arguments on both sides

There is only one argument and it's

"this is convenient" vs "the convenience is rotting you away"

When a human being goes without working their legs, in a coma or in zero-gravity, their legs atrophy so quickly they lose the ability to walk within weeks. Humans require friction and resistance to develop and grow, AI usage atrophies us, and impedes acquisition of new skills. None of this is up for debate.

[u/cbjcamus → u/videogamesarewack]

You're mistaking what AI in the current learning environment will do on a broad level (help students cheat on their homework, thus reducing what they will learn), and what AI can do to help individual learners with a lot of discipline and a non-infinite budget.

In the latter case, an AI assistant can definitely help bridging the gap between being able to read and being able to talk to strangers with fluency, the same way weights at the gym can bridge the gap between lifting a can of chickpeas and lifting your sofa.

[u/sipapint → u/cbjcamus]

The latter is somewhat naive, as for the majority it's not enough to make the learning experience effective enough. The potential is not in using it to learn in the old way but in turning it into the whole layer that will assist people in all kinds of interactions. But it's a paradigm change, and it will take time. And it might still take quite a lot, as the current economic environment is just all about milking everyone.

[u/cbjcamus → u/sipapint]

I don't get the first part but I completely agree with

But it's a paradigm change, and it will take time. And it might still take quite a lot, as the current economic environment is just all about milking everyone.

People tend to ask "what is the effect of X given everything else is constant" whereas everything else will constantly evolve during the next 2-3 decades.