So when I use AI to create texts, it is unfortunately not rare for there to be mistakes.
If I try to read books, the vocabulary in books is much more difficult.
Even if I try textbooks for kids (history, 5th grade), the number of unknown vocab words is extreme. I don’t even need to know those words because people rarely speak with them.
I want to actually learn about things. Things like culture, history, anthropology, sociology, etc.
Y’all have any ideas?
Así que, cuando uso IA para crear textos, lamentablemente no es raro que haya errores. Si intento leer libros, el vocabulario es mucho más complejo. Incluso si intento leer libros de texto para niños (de historia, de 5.º de primaria), la cantidad de vocabulario desconocido es enorme. Ni siquiera necesito saber esas palabras porque la gente rara vez las usa.
Quiero aprender cosas de verdad. Cosas como cultura, historia, antropología, sociología, etc.
¿Tienen alguna idea?
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Read simple Wikipedia articles. Simple Wikipedia
There are 1,000,000 articles or more in different languages.
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I process books:
gaining words and essentially reading in English (Lingq should provide better shortcuts for this).
later, at least attempting the target language.
rarely, reading in the target language, knowing the words.
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Hi asad100101,
I’m not seeing a Spanish version of the “simple wikipedia” (which I would assume the op is trying to learn). Nevertheless they could take the simple English ones and use deepl or chatgpt to translate to Spanish. Or they could take the regular spanish wikipedia articles and ask Chatgpt to simplify to their level (if they do not have simplify within Lingq).
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How is it possible to read about “culture, history, anthropology, sociology, etc.” using words that are used in normal conversation? All of these subjects of very specific vocabulary - even for 5th graders.
In my opinion, it’s best to use books that have lots of conversation in them. I’m going through the Spanish Harry Potter series and currently focusing on recognizing the vocabulary that is used.
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There is this online Spanish language encyclopedia, which is described as being for children from 8-13, as well as for adult Spanish language learners. The same site offers simplified Wikipedia-style articles for over a dozen other languages.
@JeremyBrunette - For Spanish I found the CuriosaMente lessons here on LingQ to be a really fun and interesting way to “learn about things” in Spanish. The lessons seem to be split up over a few different courses, possibly created by different contributors here. You may have to hunt around a little to find them all.
It’s a series intended for kids, but still quite good for adult learners. I’ve only been studying Spanish for a little less than a year at this point, and I was able to grasp just about everything in them. You can search for the ones imported to LingQ in the usual way, and here are a couple of off-site links for the series:
I hope that helps. You’re not going to understand everything perfecty at first, but you’re not supposed to. Be patient with yourself and the material.
Good luck!
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Some good suggestions, especially @sockdoll. Thanks everybody who answered.
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Try reading children’s non-fiction or “young reader” versions of history and science books. They’re written for older kids or teenagers, so the vocabulary is simpler, but the content still teaches real stuff.
It sounds like you might like youtube video essays based on those topics. You could try the channel En Pocas Palabras, which is the Spanish version of Kurzgesagt, both of which feature fun animated shows about science and history. So you could watch an episode in English first, then try the Spanish version in Lingq. It’s much easier to read something if you already know more or less what it’s about. That’s why people recommend starting with a book you’ve previously enjoyed in your own language.
As another commenter said though, the topics you mentioned are probably going to include higher level or more specialised vocabulary. For this reason, I recommend having two texts on the go: one that’s easier and more suited to your level, and another that pushes you. When you get tired of the difficult text, you can switch and give your brain a break. An easy reader to start with is Un Hombre Fascinante by Juan Fernandez.
Using AI for this not only seems so pointless and wasteful of resources, but also not that fun. Reading leads to fluency, yes, but it’s supposed to be fun.
When I mentioned that I use AI to create texts, I meant that I use AI to provide transcripts of youtube videos. I’ve already found several youtube channels I’d like to read but the AI makes many conversion mistakes.
I would love to read a Spanish Kurzgesagt but the automatic transcripts have many mistakes. If you know of a channel that provides copies of its transcripts that would be ideal.
As for the specialized vocabulary, I have no problem with it. Specialized vocabulary when speaking is a world of difference from the kinds of ridiculousness found in written text. Like if you read an academic article (in history or philosophy, both subjects with little specialized terminology), it’s a headache to get through for less than voracious readers. It’s completely and unnecessarily technical (this was my biggest gripe as a history major in uni).
Algo que a mí me gusta hacer es elegir un video de YouTube (en inglés, español, lo que sea) y después pido que ChatGPT use la transcripción y lo transforme en un artículo apropiado para mi nivel. Personally, I don’t find AI to be a great tool for randomly produced content. But if you give it a reference, you’ll get something closer to what you’re looking for.
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@JeremyBrunette
For YouTube transcripts, you can try https://youtubetotranscript.com/
(I just googled ‘youtube transcripts’)
“Veritasium en español” is the official channel with human translation (I guess):
I second the Wikipedia suggestion. I often read the articles in English first, then in Spanish. I do that for all kind of subjects: science, people, technologies, history, films, etc..
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