I add for my future reference a post added elsewhere by @bembe
Try to set yourself a target: some do “journaling” every day, I prefer to write a weekly essay and get that checked over by a native speaker. It is amazing how this written work all adds up, and this “step by step” process is summed up in a book by Anne Lamott “Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life”.
At first adopt the KISS principle of “keep it short and straightforward”. You can get into a terrible tangle if the thoughts and sentence structure get just too complex. Steve Kaufmann wisely suggests you try to start writing as you might speak, so that you gain early momentum. Until you are an advanced writer just try to keep to discrete short and snappy sentences for a description, an idea or a concept, rather than try to emulate Germanic writers who can go on (and on) for very lengthy sentences - and then, as Mark Twain suggested, pile up all the verbs at the end…
Above all, write at first about something that really “grips” you. You may already have some command of the vocabulary for such a topic without the deadening effect of having to look up every other word.
As with any good examinee spend an appropriate time planning what you are going to write, before starting to write. It is often very helpful to jot down a few ideas about a topic and then maybe re-order these thoughts so you know where you are going with an essay.
5.:A simple “sandwich structure” is often very effective: an introductory paragraph, paragraphs for the “filling” in the middle, and then rounding off with a conclusion that ties everything together.
Keep honing your favourite phrases. As discussed elsewhere people naturally talk (and write) in “collocations” or chunks of a language. Gather some synonyms so that you do not use “meiner Meinung nach…” absolutely all the time, but IMO (sic) phrases like that are mighty useful! After a while they become second nature and, having had them corrected or double-checked, you can be confident that the phrasing is accurate.
Just as with any good writer or journalist go back over your product and be ready to revise. Can you express something more succinctly? In German pay particular attention to the sentence structure - part of a verb in second position, the other part (or parts) clustered at the end? Did you get those pesky prepositions and the cases they govern correct? Are you sure of the gender of a noun - and if not, can you think of an alternative where you are sure, or can you maybe “work around” the idea.
Definitely keep submitting your efforts for checking by a native speaker.
Write your first draft (say your summary of news, Wikipedia articles, etc.) in German.
Then use ChatGPT to rewrite your draft (selecting the tone you prefer: informal, formal, business-oriented, academic).
Finally, use Deepl Write to correct what ChatGPT has produced.
Work again on the end result - if necessary.
Well, the general idea of “AI ping pong” is to use a chain or “zoo” of AI tools that people can use as creative sparring partners.
In other words, humans are still in the writing loop, but they let these tools compete against each other to get ideas, gain momentum, generate text / audio / images and video, etc.
1) The first thing is to get good at “prompt engineering”:
2) Use the generative AIs to create personalized content for you:
Language level: You can specify the language level the genAI should use (A1/2, B1/2, C1/C2) to adjust the difficulty of the L2.
Vocabulary level: You can also specify whether to use basic, intermediate, or advanced vocabulary (including collocations = conventionalized word groups / idioms).
Topic complexity: You can choose a simpler or more complicated topic to discuss.
Sentence structures: You can specify whether the genAI should use simple or complex sentence structures.
Idioms / grammar: You can specify whether the AI should use idioms or complex grammar constructions (Note: It can also explain the grammar constructions themselves by dissecting them).
Summarizing Wikipedia / news articles, blogposts, etc.
Chatting with the genAI about the contents it generated (Note: You can also use Memrise, for ex., to talk to ChatGPT 3.5).
Then you can use other tools to play around with the personalized content created by the genAI:
Deepl Write
The AI voices in Edge (IMO, they’re excellent - much better than LingQ’s AI voices).
LingQ’s AI to simplify texts.
And, of course, you can import your personalized content into LingQ to create your own personalized library
3) If you want to go more “pro”, check out these writing tools tips:
try learning to write in french that is a nightmare i see why natives make mistakes with their own language lol. but i do agree with what what others have said above
Maybe AI tools can help you write a better article, but they don’t improve your skills, because you aren’t using those skills. Instead, you are learning how to write using AI. That’s a different skill.
I agree. But you can use AI, in the same way you use a teacher. AI and teachers don’t substitute your learning process. I have definitely no intention to become AI dependent. It’s up to you to use your tools in a strategic way to obtain your desired outcome.
If they let the LLMs do all the work, they won’t learn much.
However, they will learn a lot if they use them as creative sparring
partners - for example, by comparing their first draft of a text with the
AI suggestions.
And, of course, people should also know about prompt patterns as well so that they don’t “misuse” the genAIs by blindly relying on their supposed factual correctness.
It’s up to you to use your tools in a strategic way to obtain your desired outcome.
I agree. And this means - beyond SLA - that the near future is likely to be determined by the combo of AI + human(s), but not by AI alone or humans alone.
This may change with the arrival of general AIs, though.
