How to use ChatGPT to learn a language

Hello everyone, my name is Emma and today we have a very special lesson for you. First of all, you will notice I'm not in the usual place. I'm in a different place today.

I'm actually at my home. So you might notice I have a big book collection and I'm very excited to be here because not only am I at home, but I have a very exciting lesson for you today. Today we are going to learn about machine learning programs like ChatGPT and how these programs can really help you improve your English.

Now it's very exciting. I have been practicing and experimenting with ChatGPT and machine learning programs myself because I'm learning Mandarin and I find that these programs can do a lot. And so I'm very happy to share this with you today.

So in this video, we're going to talk mostly about ChatGPT because it's the most popular machine learning program for language right now. And it's also free at the time of this filming. So I think it's a great example, but what you learn in this video can be used with other machine learning programs because I'm sure in the future there's going to be more and there's, you know, the possibilities will be endless with what you can do with these.

This is going to be a very hands-on lesson. So you will see me type things into ChatGPT and you will see how I use it to learn a language such as English. So I'm very excited.

But first what I wanted to talk about is what is ChatGPT? Everyone's talking about it. What is it?

Well, I should first tell you I am not an expert in artificial intelligence. I am not a technology person who knows a lot about technology. I'm not an expert.

I'm an English teacher. So I've decided instead of me telling you what ChatGPT is, to have ChatGPT tell you what ChatGPT is. So earlier today I asked ChatGPT, "What are you?

" And ChatGPT responded, "I am an AI," which stands for artificial intelligence. I am a computer program that has been trained to understand and generate human-like text. Generate is similar to create.

So it's a computer program that understands and creates human-like text. So it feels like you're talking to an actual human. I use machine learning techniques to learn from large amounts of data and that helps me to respond to questions and provide information.

So you can ask ChatGPT questions or you can ask it for information. My goal is to assist you. Assist is another way to say help.

So my goal is to help you by answering your queries and helping you with whatever you need. So ChatGPT helps you by answering your questions. Okay, so very exciting.

So what can ChatGPT do to help somebody learn a language? Well the list is actually very long. I've just chosen five great examples of how ChatGPT can help you, but there's a lot more it can do.

So one of the most useful things ChatGPT can do is it can correct your grammar mistakes. So you make a mistake, you don't know if you should be using the present perfect or the simple past, you can write your sentence and ChatGPT can correct it and it can tell you why you're correct or you're incorrect. So it explains your mistakes, which can be very helpful when learning something.

You get great feedback from ChatGPT on your mistakes. ChatGPT can also teach new words and what I really like is it can tell you how important or common these words are. English has a vocabulary, some say of a million words.

So there's a lot of words in English. You don't need to know every word. I don't know every English word.

So it's important to know what are the most common words and which words can we use in conversation, which words do we use in writing, which words are formal, which words are slang. It can help you understand these points about different words and teach you new ones. It can also write you short stories where you tell it, I want these words in this story and it will write you a story and then you can review the words by reading the story.

So it's great to help you review words that you learn. It can also read your writing. So if you have an IELTS essay you've written and you want to see how you did, you can put your IELTS essay into ChatGPT.

You can put your resume there and it can give you ideas on what mistakes you're making and give you advice on how to correct that. So it's great for your writing and to become a better writer. And finally, it can also give you great advice on how to learn a language like English.

If you ask, how do you learn English? It will have a lot of great examples and points for you. And there's so much more.

These are just five ideas I came up with. So let's get started and let's actually go to the website openai. com and let's start seeing what we can do with ChatGPT.

Okay, so we've gotten onto the OpenAI website and this is what it looks like at the time of filming this video. You might see something different. I'm sure that they will be making changes.

But for now, you go to the OpenAI website and then you just go to sign up. And now it says create your account. So you can create an account, you enter your email address, click continue and they will ask for some information.

So that's how you create an account. I already have an account. So we will start with my account and just start learning English.

Okay, so at the time of this filming, this box pops up and it reminds us that ChatGPT is giving us a free research preview. So again, I don't know what will happen in the future. But at this moment in time, ChatGPT is free.

And another key point to note is ChatGPT admits, while we have safeguards in place, the system may occasionally generate incorrect or misleading information and produce offensive and biased content. It is not intended to give advice. So what this means is sometimes ChatGPT may make a mistake.

It's not 100% correct all the time. So we just need to remember ChatGPT might make a mistake. Okay, and then it just reminds us, don't share sensitive or personal information with ChatGPT.

So don't give it your credit card number, don't give it personal details. You know, and we're not going to do that today. We're just focusing on using it to help us improve our English.

Okay, so this is what ChatGPT looks like. It has some examples. But what I'm going to do is from the beginning, I'm going to go to the message box at the bottom where it says send a message.

And I'm going to tell ChatGPT what I want. I'm going to say, I'm learning English. I need help.

I am a beginner. It's good to let ChatGPT know this information at the beginning, because ChatGPT will then try to make its responses more simple, more easier to understand. And it will prepare ChatGPT to help you better.

You'll also notice that I actually made a mistake. I spelt learning wrong. So what happens if I make a mistake in my question, which a lot of people learning a language will do?

Maybe I even say, I make multiple mistakes. So this is not correct English, but I wrote, I'm learning English, I need help, I am beginners. Will ChatGPT understand me?

Let's see. Great, so would you look at that? ChatGPT wrote, of course, I'd be happy to help you with your English learning journey.

Learning a new language can be challenging, but with practice and guidance, you can make significant progress. How can I assist you today? Do you have any specific questions or topics you'd like to focus on?

So that's great. ChatGPT is saying he's happy or it's happy to help. Well, maybe as an English speaker or an English language learner, maybe there's words here I don't even understand.

Maybe this is too difficult for me to understand. So I can actually ask ChatGPT to do something for me. I can say more simple English.

Okay, so now you'll notice that ChatGPT has actually written fewer words and is trying to make the words a little simpler. Okay, so what shall we focus on? Let's first start with using ChatGPT to help us learn some new vocabulary.

So imagine you see a new word, you don't know what it means. Well, what can you do? You can ask ChatGPT what it means.

So I'm going to give you an example. Imagine I don't know the word workout. I can just write, what does workout mean?

Let's see what ChatGPT says. Oh, wow, he's, or it, I'm sorry, I keep saying he, it's an it. ChatGPT has actually given quite a bit of information.

So let me look at this for a second. So ChatGPT said the phrase workout has a few different meanings, depending on the context. Here are two common interpretations.

And then ChatGPT talks about physical exercise and finding a solution. But this looks like a lot of information. Maybe I can ask ChatGPT to make this easier for me.

So what am I going to say? I'm going to say more easy. I'm a beginner.

Okay, and so what you may have seen is that ChatGPT actually changed the original answer and made the next answer a little easier to understand. So ChatGPT wrote, here's a simpler explanation of the phrase workout. It means exercise.

Workout means to do physical activities or exercises to keep your body healthy and fit. It can include things like going to the gym, doing exercises at home or engaging in activities like jogging, swimming or dancing. Or it can also mean solve a problem.

Workout can mean finding a solution to a problem or figuring something out. Just like when you try to understand or fix a difficult situation by thinking about it or trying different approaches. Okay, so it's given us two pretty good definitions.

Now I'm going to ask it to do a couple of other things. I'm going to ask it to use these words in sentences to help me understand better. So I can say, give me five simple sentences with workout to help me understand.

And look at that, ChatGPT has just created five sentences that I can look at and review. And so now, you know, the best way to learn is to actually see examples. And so now I have five great examples for the word workout.

So let's look at the examples ChatGPT gave. The first one, I work out at the gym every Monday and Wednesday to stay healthy. And I like this, it's a simple sentence.

Number two, let's work out together in the park and do some stretching exercises. Number three, she couldn't work out the math problem, so she asked her teacher for help. Number four, we need to work out a plan to finish the project on time.

And number five, he worked out a compromise with his friend to resolve their disagreement. So ChatGPT has included both meanings of workout in these examples. What else can I do?

Well, imagine I speak a different language. So English isn't my first language. Maybe I could ask ChatGPT to translate this into French.

Can you translate into French? Just because I want to make sure my understanding is the correct, so I might ask it to translate into my own language. And there you go.

It's giving me a translation. So I can compare the English translation to the translation of, you know, whatever language I speak. And that can also help me to understand the meaning of these words better.

So another great feature of ChatGPT is when you're learning a language, you might not understand the differences between words. So let's see how ChatGPT can help us with this. Imagine the words fun and funny.

Many learners make mistakes. They don't know what's fun and what's funny. What's the difference?

So let's ask ChatGPT. What is the difference between fun and funny? Okay, so it takes a moment for ChatGPT to think about it.

Okay, and ChatGPT is writing a longer answer. So you know, before I even do anything, I'm going to see if it can make an even simpler answer. So I'm going to say, make a beginner answer more simple and easy.

And you can ask it to do this in many different ways. The main, a keyword could be simple, beginner, shorter, and that can really give ChatGPT information to help it create a better response for you. And there it goes.

It's created an easier, more simplified explanation. So let's look at this explanation. Fun means something enjoyable and makes you happy.

It can describe activities or things that you like and have a good time doing. For example, a birthday party with friends can be fun. Funny means something is amusing and makes you laugh.

It describes things that are humorous and bring joy through laughter. For example, a joke that makes you laugh is funny. And you can ask more questions.

If this is still unclear, you can ask it to translate again. So translate this into Spanish. Okay, and there it goes.

It's going to write in Spanish to help us understand if we speak Spanish, what these differences are. So this can be really, really useful and save you a lot of time, because you can get a lot of information here instead of searching through lots of websites. A lot of the times, ChatGPT can answer you directly and change its answer based off of your level of understanding.

And again, it's great. We can ask it to make us example sentences. So I can say, write 10 sentences with fun and funny.

So it's going to be five sentences with fun, five sentences with funny to show the meaning. So it takes a moment, it's thinking. And great.

So now we have lots of examples. We won't go through every one, but just to, if we go up, ChatGP has now given us five sentences with fun and five sentences with funny to illustrate the meaning. So here are the five with the word fun.

Let's just look at one example. The school carnival was filled with fun activities and delicious food. And then we have sentences with funny.

The comedian's jokes were so funny that the entire audience was laughing. So this is just one example of how you can use ChatGPT to help you with when you learn new vocabulary. Another great feature of ChatGPT is it can help you understand what vocabulary to learn.

So imagine I want to learn phrasal verbs and I don't know which phrasal verbs to learn. Maybe I don't even know what a phrasal verb is, so I can say what is, and I'm going to make mistakes on purpose right now in my writing because I know learners make mistakes. So I want you to see that even if you make a mistake, it can usually understand you.

What is phrasal verb? Usually I would say, what is a phrasal verb? Okay, so it gives a definition and lots of examples.

So now what I'm going to do is imagine we've figured out what a phrasal verb is, essentially it's when you have a verb and a second word, which is a preposition like on, off, in, over. You'll see what I mean in a moment. And we could learn more about phrasal verbs here, but what I want to do today is I want to find out what are the most common phrasal verbs.

Let me ask, what are the 10 most common phrasal verbs? Give a definition and example for each. And so this is great.

It's giving us 10 phrasal verbs that are some of the most common. So they're common, that means they're important to learn. It gives the definition, so what does it mean?

And it gives an example. So that's wonderful. So imagine I want to really remember these phrasal verbs.

What I can also do is I can ask it to write me a story with these 10 phrasal verbs to help me remember. So I can say, I want a story, and maybe I'll tell it a short story. I want all 10 phrasal verbs in it.

And yeah, what do we want the story to be about? Let's say we want the story to be about vacation. The story can be about vacation to Canada.

All right. So let's watch it make a story for us with all the words we want to learn. So this is a long story, ChatGPT just did a lot of work, but I'm going to ask it to make it shorter.

I'm not even going to read the story, I'm just going to say, make the story shorter and simple for beginner. And again, this is the beauty of ChatGPT. You can keep telling it, make it simple, make it easy, make it for a beginner.

And then it really does try to do that. So in a moment, we will read the story ChatGPT has created with these phrasal verbs. And again, we gave it very specific instructions.

We want it to be about vacation. You can ask it to write you stories about things in your life. And again, this is a great way to practice words you've learned, because by reading words, it helps you to remember them better.

And by seeing them in example, it can really help you know how to use a word correctly. So let's read the story ChatGPT wrote. And I'll tell you if I like it or not.

So ChatGPT said, here's a shorter and simpler version of the story for beginners. Once there was a family who went on a fun vacation to Canada. They wore warm coats and woke up early for their flight.

They arrived in Canada and found a nice hotel to stay in. So already we're seeing some of the phrasal verbs. We see woke up is a phrasal verb.

We see stay in is a phrasal verb. We see turned on. They turned on the TV and explored the city.

They ate at a cafe, but forgot their camera there. They quickly went back to return it. During their trip, they hiked in the mountains, went canoeing and tried fishing.

They took care of each other during the activities. On their last day, they packed their things and got ready to go home. They said goodbye to Canada and flew back.

So here we have another phrasal verb, feeling happy and grateful for the amazing vacation they had. Okay, so it did give us a shorter and simpler version. I don't think all the phrasal verbs we wanted were in the story, but you can keep asking it to make adjustments.

So we could even tell it that, you know, you forgot some phrasal verbs, or can you add more phrasal verbs? But we'll leave it like this for now because I think just to show you what ChatGPT can do and how it can use vocabulary you're using to write a story is pretty cool. I just wanted to point out that ChatGPT is not perfect and can make some mistakes.

In this story, there are no grammar mistakes. But when I was just reading it again, I noticed it's a bit of a strange story. For example, it says here, they turned on the TV and explored the city.

That can be correct. But it just sounds sort of strange that you would turn on the TV, but then quickly explore the city. So it might not be the most logical story.

And then if you look at the next sentence, they ate at a cafe, but forgot their camera there. Okay. They quickly went back to return it.

So they forgot their camera out of place. I wouldn't use the word return here. I would say they quickly went back to get it, to get their camera.

So again, ChatGPT is not perfect. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to use it because there are so many things it can do. It's just important to remember that sometimes it might say something strange, inaccurate, or it might make a mistake.

So now let's look at some other things ChatGPT can do. Okay, so I think one of the best things chat GPT can do is correct your mistakes and give you information about what the mistake is. So imagine I write something for a homework assignment, or I write something in a resume, or on an IELTS essay, what I can do is I can ask GPT, ChatGPT if there are mistakes.

So let me show you an example of this. So I have here a sentence I made. And I know there are mistakes in it.

But imagine I don't know this. I wrote, I read history Cinderella, it good, me like history on Cinderella. And then I asked ChatGPT, is it correct?

But I've actually made a mistake and I put is correct. Let's see what ChatGPT says. Okay, so it's just generating, which means it's just creating the answer.

Okay, so what ChatGPT said is, it's great to hear that you enjoyed reading the history of Cinderella. However, there are a few adjustments we can make to your sentence to make it grammatically correct. So the first thing it changed is, I read the history of Cinderella.

It was good. I liked the story of Cinderella. So it's changed the grammar a little bit.

And I can compare. So I read the history of Cinderella, compare this to I read history Cinderella. It was good.

I wrote it good. I wrote me like history. And it said, I like the story of Cinderella.

So you can see the differences and you can learn from your mistakes this way. Now ChatGPT mentioned what the mistakes were. It said in this revised version, we use the before history.

We use was instead of is. And lastly, we use liked instead of like, and it gives the reason why. So this is one of the things I like most about ChatGPT, you can make mistakes and ask it to fix your mistakes, and then learn from what it tells you.

So maybe I'm still kind of confused about, okay, story, history, what's the difference I can ask, should I say story of Cinderella, or history of Cinderella. And again, I'm making mistakes. Because I think that ChatGPT is actually very good at figuring out what your mistakes are.

So now it explains the difference. So it says you can use story or history depending on your meaning. And then it gives you the two different meanings of, you know, if you use history, what that would mean, or if you use story, what that would mean.

And again, if this is complicated, I can ask it more simple for beginner. And now it's changing it into something easier for you to understand. Okay, great.

So one of the strongest things ChatGPT can do is fix your mistakes and tell you what the mistakes are and why they're mistakes and explain them to you. All right, well, let's look at some other things ChatGPT can do. So ChatGPT can also help you with your pronunciation.

It's not great because you can't hear its pronunciation, but you can ask it how to pronounce something and it can give you some advice. So watch this. Imagine I don't know how to pronounce this word island.

So I can write how to pronounce island. Let's see what it says. So it gives some helpful tips on pronunciation.

It says the word island is pronounced as island. Here's a breakdown of the pronunciation I like the letter I in the alphabet and land rhyming with words like hand or stand. Put them together and it sounds like island.

The stress is on the first syllable I. So this can, again, be helpful. You know, it's good to listen to pronunciation, but ChatGPT can give some advice on this.

Finally, you can ask ChatGPT for just general English advice. How can I learn English? ChatGPT can give a lot of tips.

Start with the basics, develop your listening skills, read, write regularly. Okay, so look, there's a lot of tips. And if this is too much for you, you can always ask ChatGPT, give me three tips on learning English or something like that.

All right, so now time for my question. I want to know what ChatGPT thinks of me. Does ChatGPT even know I exist?

So let's write a question. Should I learn English from EngVid's teacher, Emma? Let's see what it's going to say.

Oh, it's taking its time. And it's giving a lot of information. So I'm just going to move up so we can read this together because I am very curious what ChatGPT wants to say about me.

ChatGPT says, EngVid is a popular online platform that provides English lessons through video tutorials. Teacher Emma is one of the instructors on EngVid, and many learners find her lessons helpful and engaging. Yes.

So I'm happy with ChatGPT's answer. However, ooh, don't like that. However, the choice of learning from teacher Emma or any specific teacher ultimately depends on your personal learning style and preferences.

I would agree with that. Here are a few factors to consider when selecting a teacher or learning resource. And then they just give a lot of information about, you know, what to look for in a good teacher.

And then at the end, it says it can be helpful to explore multiple resources and teachers to find the ones that work best for you. EngVid, including teacher Emma's lessons, can be a valuable addition to your English learning journey. But feel free to explore other platforms, teachers, or materials that suit your learning style and goals.

So I want to thank ChatGPT. I would agree with this advice. I think it's good to check out my resources, but also to check out other resources.

Learning English is a journey, and there's a lot of great resources out there. All right, so today I showed you just a little bit of what ChatGPT can do. There are so many possibilities with these machine learning programs.

Again, I use them to help me learn Chinese, and I find they really make a big difference. There are some pros, meaning some good things, and some cons or bad things with these machine learning programs. I think with ChatGPT, one of the pros is that, you know, you can make mistakes in your grammar, and it can usually understand what you want or what you mean.

You can ask it to make things easier, or simpler, or for a beginner, and it responds to that. So I think those are great. It can correct your mistakes.

If you do your homework, you can check to see if the answers you write on your own are correct. If you do make a mistake, you can ask what the mistake was, and ChatGPT can give you an explanation. At the time of filming, ChatGPT is free.

So there's, you know, and it's pretty easy to use. So I think that there's a lot of great things about ChatGPT. Now, the cons or the problems with ChatGPT that I can see is, first of all, sometimes it does give wrong information or inaccurate information.

So you need to be very careful. And when you're reading, if something doesn't sound right, really think about that. Because sometimes chat GPT does make mistakes.

I think that also, this is what ChatGPT is today. But these technologies are going to improve. So the model you see today has some limitations.

Maybe in the future, there will be better tools. And that's what I hope to see. So if you like this video, click on the like button because I'm hoping to make a part two of this video where we will look at how to improve our IELTS scores and how to study for IELTS using ChatGPT.

I think ChatGPT can really help us with things like the TOEFL or the IELTS. So that will be part two. So thank you so much for watching, and don't forget to subscribe.

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