I often practice languages with ChatGPT using voice messages. I've noticed that while it works well for English, German, Spanish, and Italian, it absolutely doesn't understand my Dutch. What it recognizes and transcribes is often gibberish.
Of course, part of the problem is my pronunciation. I'm currently at an A1/A2 level, and it's still quite hard for me to produce certain Dutch sounds. But I also asked ChatGPT and Perplexity whether there are general issues with automatic speech recognition for Dutch, and both of them suggested that the reason might be a relatively small training dataset for Dutch in general, and especially for non-native speech. As a result, these models perform much better with native speakers. They're simply not as used to hearing foreign accents in Dutch and may "decide" that it's actually another language.
At the same time, when I use a specialized AI tool for language learning, like LanguaTalk, I barely have these issues. Maybe it's because I'm supposed to explicitly choose a language and its variety (Dutch from the Netherlands) in the settings, so that the model is forced to try and detect Dutch even if it sounds strange :)
Have you had similar experiences with Dutch or any other "smaller" language?
P.S. This struggle made me finally book a lesson with a Dutch tutor 🙂
That's me and ChatGPT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3dToD7_ATU :D
This is ChatGPT and me: ... || When you post something somewhere, it's this.
Great post!
@CocoPop Thanks a lot! Have you ever run into similar problems?
My pleasure! And yes, I had a similar problem with Russian. I decided to change my language setting on my phone to Russian and dictate messages and comments, etc. instead of typing them. At first, it got everything wrong, but then I started testing different pronunciations until the phone understood me, and eventually it understood everything I said. It's strange because I don't speak Russian — I only read and write it, but at least my phone thinks my Russian slaps! 😜
@CocoPop "my Russian slaps" I had to google what it means, although I could guess it from the context. Learned something new today! :D
Я думаю, что вы говорите мой русский жжет! 😂 в смысле, что он просто огонь 🔥 Ну, по крайней мере мой телефон так думает 😅
By the way, your English slaps — only four or five corrections!
@CocoPop твой русский просто огонь — это точно! Не уверена, что можно сказать "мой русский жжет". Мне кажется, "жжет" или "отжигает" обычно кто-то , то есть человек или какой-то субъект. Например, Ули просто жжет своими комментариями :) Но я на 100% не уверена, надо созвать совет нейтивспикеров :D
@CocoPop Thanks, it's very kind of you! There were actually more, but I've already applied your correcrtions, so not all of them are still visible :) Interestingly, no amount of checking with spellcheckers or AI helps me get a clean text, where you wouldn't find errors :D
If it makes you feel any better, even native speakers don't write "clean" — and to be honest, the average native makes more mistakes in a post this size than you did 😅
@CocoPop It does make me feel better, thanks! :D