Video summary
The speaker begins the day recovering from a severe illness, noting that after receiving medication and finally being able to breathe properly, he feels renewed energy for his language learning routine. His plan involves utilizing several applications on his phone, including Rosetta Stone for Spanish, Lingo Pie for Chinese, and potentially Pimsleur later on. He explains that while he has already used Rosetta Stone extensively to solidify his understanding of Spanish grammar and pronunciation—specifically correcting his T and D sounds—he is also working on Esperanto. He mentions a significant realization regarding the differences between Esperanto and Spanish phonology, which had previously confused him, and notes that despite listening to thousands of hours of content, he is still refining his ability to verbalize these distinctions correctly.
Before heading out, the speaker completes a household chore by watering newly installed grass strips in his backyard, which he obtained from a neighbor who was replacing their lawn with artificial turf. He describes the process of manually watering the new grass while listening to Chinese podcasts for over an hour and a half. Afterward, he charges his phone and uses the remaining time to complete forty minutes of Spanish lessons on Rosetta Stone before heading to the train station. During his commute, he continues his language immersion by listening to more podcasts, eventually arriving at a nearly empty cinema to watch the movie *The Dog Stars*, which he finds surprisingly good despite its lack of a traditional climax.
Upon returning home, the speaker shifts focus to the broader implications of artificial intelligence on various industries and language learning. He observes a crisis in mathematics where young professionals feel their future is threatened by AI's ability to perform complex tasks, a trend mirrored in the game industry where concept artists are being replaced by AI-generated art to save costs. This technological advancement has led him to consider replacing professional translators with AI tools for his business needs, as modern AI capabilities now match or exceed human performance for many tasks. He reflects on how this reduces the necessity for learning languages for professional purposes, citing a past experience at a wine company where his limited Chinese skills were once valued, whereas today such skills might be entirely bypassed by translation software.
Despite these "dark thoughts" about the obsolescence of language learning in professional contexts, the speaker sees a potential future where constructed languages like Esperanto will flourish among hobbyists who seek the experience of learning without investing thousands of hours. He contrasts this with major world languages like English, which he predicts will lose their status as essential skills for the general public as AI dubbing and real-time translation layers make consuming content in one's native language effortless. He draws a historical parallel to horseshoe repairers, suggesting that while most people will no longer need to learn foreign languages due to perfect translation abstraction, a small niche of enthusiasts will continue to pursue them for cultural or personal fulfillment, marking a significant shift in how humanity interacts with global communication.
Read the full video transcript
What's up, grinders? Welcome back to the
channel. I hope you're ready for another
language day. Now, it's already midday
here. I've done a little bit of language
stuff in the morning. I was planning to
vlog everything, but I was coughing like
all crazy and I actually had to go to
the med center and obviously I couldn't
really film while I was in there, but um
they've given me some medicine and
suddenly I can [ __ ] breathe. It's so
good, guys. Breathing, it's not
overrated. Okay, so I'm just like I'm
happy right now. So, what I'm going to
be doing is I got a couple of chores
around got to do around the house. I'll
probably film that. Like, for example, I
need to go [ __ ] water some grass that
I've got. Um, you'll you'll understand
that in a moment. Later tonight, I want
to go see a movie because I'm happy to
be able to breathe again and have
energy. But, in the meantime, we're
going to be studying the hell out of
languages, and I've managed to get
Rosetta Stone installed on my phone. So,
I'll be smashing that for Spanish. I'll
be doing Lingo Pie for Chinese, but I'll
probably also start doing Lingo Pie for
Spanish pretty soon as well. But maybe
I'll save that more for when I get back
from my trip to China because I go to
China in a week and a half. And I'm
thinking about installing Pimpsler, but
I might do that when I actually get back
from China just because I don't want to
be paying for something I'm not using
while I'm over there. So, I've already
got a a lifetime membership to Rosetta
Stone and I've already been using it.
I've been enjoying it greatly, funnily
enough, um, for Spanish because it's
basically just cementing everything that
I've kind of recognized but didn't
understand. And now I'm just slowly
starting to, you know, start to be able
to actually verbalize some of those
things. Another big thing I did while I
was kind of dying is I studied Spanish
phenology to find out where I was going
wrong. Uh, one of the things I found out
is that, you know, my T and D sounds,
which you guys pointed out, apparently
in Spanish, you guys can correct me down
in the comment section because I saw
this in video, but the T in Spanish is
almost like the tongue is between the
teeth like this. So, it's like gusta
gusta gusta. I don't know. I don't know.
And then like the d is the same. So, it'
be like tu
t
du. And it's obviously not possive, you
know? You're not meant to have air
coming out. So, that is one thing I've
discovered. Uh, what else? I've I worked
on my vows as much as I can, but uh
they're rough. They're rough. Okay. It's
a bit hard now because I've listened to
a thousand hours and completely cemented
in my mind that they're basically the
Espiranovs when in a lot of ways they're
not. They're slightly different. So,
that kind of messed me up in some ways.
Yeah. And that's pretty much what I've
done. So, let's get [ __ ] started with
the day, right? Okay. So, as I
mentioned, one of the first things I
need to do is actually a chore. And that
chore is I need to water some new grass
strips that we've got in the backyard.
We walk past a neighbor's place and
they'll pulling out their grass and
replacing it with, you know, that fake
plastic grass. I [ __ ] hate that
grass. It's disgusting, man. But anyway,
he had like a bunch of grass strips and
we wanted to steal those and use them in
our backyard cuz we had some dead areas.
So, as you can see right here, here is
the grass strips which I basically took
from his property and uh installed here.
And there's also one down the front over
here as well. Let me just let me just
bring it over here so you guys can see
it. There it is. It's just been put
there cuz that was all dead ground. So,
what I'm going to do now is I'm just
going to water this because obviously
it's just been transplanted and uh it's
not in the happiest of moods over that.
Okay. So, you're ready for some really
high tech Australian grass watering.
This is how we do it, guys. My hose is
[ __ ] So, I just hold the [ __ ] part
above the grass and just water like
this. What I'm going to be doing is this
for the next 10, 15 minutes, whatever. I
don't know. Um, and then I'm going to
listen to some Chinese podcasts while I
do this. Okay, 24 minutes of listening
done and grass watered. Hey, Kato. K. K.
Come here. Come here. Come on.
Okay, now before I go out for a bit, I
need to um charge my phone and I figure
in this time what I'll do is Spanish
Rosetta Stone on my phone for the first
time actually. Okay, so we have Rosetta
Stone open now. What I'm going to do is
this has got the intro lesson. Then
we've got the units. Now, for some
reason it says I haven't finished unit
one, language basics, but I have. And
then unit two, greetings and
introductions. I think that one's just
too easy. So, I'm going to just start it
straight on unit three today. Okay. So,
let's begin and we'll just do a little
bit together so you guys can see this in
action. Okay. Start learning. By the
way, if you guys decide you want to get
like Rosetta Stone or something, um,
make sure you go via the link in my
description so I actually get some
monies. Okay.
So, the man is working. Okay.
So, the girl is playing
Yeah. So, that's pretty much it.
>> Okay. So, apparently that shows my
score. This is new to me.
>> Unos
it should be unto
untoe.
God, that was a terrible roll down.
unique.
Cool. Now I'm going to do the rest while
not recording. Okay, so I finished with
the Rosetta Stone. I did like 40 minutes
worth. I'm just quickly cooking up some
steak. Um, and then we're going to go
out. Okay, so I'm just walking to the
train station now. It's going to take me
about 30 minutes to get there. So during
that trip, I'm just going to listen to
some Chinese podcasts. So far, I've done
an hour and 5 minutes of Chinese
podcasts. That doesn't obviously include
the 40 minutes I did of Rosetta Stone
for Spanish. Uh, but I still need to do
a lot more for Spanish for the day and I
technically also need to do Lingo Pie
for Chinese. So, I'm going to probably
do Lingo Pie once I find somewhere to
sit down. So, I'm at an hour and 51
minutes as you can see, listening to
Chinese podcast. I have not yet touched
any Lingo Pie. And I'm about to go in to
watch a movie, which is this one right
here, The Dog Stars. I haven't seen
anything about this one before, but it
looked kind of interesting the trailer.
Bro, look at this. There is no one in
the cinema. I don't know about you guys,
but I have noticed in Australia over the
last year or so that the cinemas are
literally dying. Like apart from the
Spider-Man movie, most movies have like
only a couple of people in here. Okay,
so I've just finished watching the movie
and I'm now starting to head back home.
Uh that was actually a surprisingly good
movie. I enjoyed it. Like it didn't
really have any main climax or anything
like that. Um, it was kind of a I
wouldn't say it follows like a general
storyline, but um, it was a good movie.
So, that's pretty much it. I'm done with
the Chinese CI for the day. As you can
see, 2 hours in total. I'm now heading
home. When I get back, I will continue
with the lingo pie for Chinese. Uh, I'm
not going to have time to do anything
else with Spanish. So, I only did 40
minutes in total with Spanish today, but
you know, it is what it is. You [ __ ]
life's busy. Okay, so I just got back
home. I'm about to start my lingo pie,
but I wanted to talk a little bit about
uh some progression I've seen within
artificial intelligence and obviously
you know what impacts that's potentially
going to have on language learning. And
one thing I've seen is uh specifically
within the space of mathematics like
there is a crisis happening within that
field basically where uh young
mathematicians who are just getting into
the field are like uh what's my future
here because like AI is you know it's it
can do anything that most mathematicians
can do nowadays and there's a lot of
push back on you know trying to even
just eject AI completely from
mathematics because literally the entire
field is within crisis in a lot of ways
and I've seen similar stuff happen
within in uh the game industry. So, for
example, concept artists, I I don't even
know if they exist in most jobs anymore,
like in most companies anymore. Like, I
haven't heard from someone working in
concept art in a few years now. Like,
there was a there I definitely knew
concept artists in the past. I don't
think any of them are working in the
industry anymore. And I think that's
simply because they're not needed now.
I'm assuming there's still concept
artists at like some of the really big
studios, but like on the for those
smaller ones and that's where most
people actually work is, you know, in
the small indie studios. I know like I
know one of the studios I worked at,
they don't even hire concept artists
anymore. It's like concept art is either
done by, you know, an outsourced artist,
which is pretty rare. And it's usually
an artist that's like really really well
known, uh, or it's straight up AI. Like
they just concept art with AI nowadays.
And then they just they just find things
that they like and they're like, "Hey,
can you mix this with this?" And then
give us some uh you know, versions of
it. Okay. You know, let's try something
else. Like that's good enough now. Uh
and from what I can tell that's
happening in most of the indie studios
uh because well, it's like it's an
entire role that you don't have to pay
for and it's one that's pretty
specialized and also easy to deal with
uh AI. And then obviously now in the
language space many years ago when I was
um doing Esbrano I was like this is
before AI became a big thing back in
2020. Okay. I was thinking about how I
could design a system that would
basically
do kind of what AI does but for Espano
but basically it would uh it would have
like a database of all the most common
structures and sentences and stuff like
that. And then it would just do a
translation for all of those to English
and then you would feed it in an article
and it would basically just do a swap
and replace as much as it could based on
this. And I remember actually building
it for a point and it it worked on a
very very small scale but like large
scale you know covering every single
type topic. Obviously it was just too
much work and I stopped doing it. Um and
I I worked with like a bunch of
different ways to to make this work you
know different path finding algorithms
and all sorts of stuff. Um, and then
breaking down grammar right down into
the individual steps. Like this was just
stuff that I was playing with for
myself. And nowadays, like even
espiranto speakers I know, like this is
a language they go out and willingly
learn. They they use AI to improve their
Espiranto. Now it's like it's pretty
crazy
because I remember when I was running my
business
um we needed to work with a es like with
a translator like he was a professional
translator but he also knew Espano. Uh
and he was helping to basically
translate our business plan to Espano.
So we translated it but then he came in
and gave it like a a full one over type
of thing. Improved it in every single
way. And it's like that actually that
costed money, but nowadays like there's
no way I would do that now. I'll just go
straight to AI and just get cuz like my
aspiring is good enough. I can just
check the outcome of AI. And in some
ways every now and then when I watch
these videos about, you know,
progression with AI, it kind of makes me
a little bit depressed when it comes to
languages cuz I'm like there's going to
be like five years from now there's
who's going to need languages in any
professional sense like at all. Now,
it's not something that I do and I I
learn languages mainly for
self-improvement reasons, but it would
still be nice to know in the back of my
brain somewhere that I could use it in
some ways uh professionally if I needed
to. Like I imagine a scenario for
example like with Chinese, okay, like
maybe I'm at work and then for some
reason they just need something in
Chinese and I can like step up and help
out, you know, cuz I remember actually
having that experience many years ago
when I was working at a a wine company.
Uh they asked like they got some
paperwork they had to fill out. It was
in Chinese. I remember the marketing
team literally asked me like can you
help with this? And my Chinese at that
stage was nowhere near good enough. But
the fact that they even asked okay was
kind of like cool in a lot of ways and
maybe one day I'd get to that point
where I could help out. Now there's no
need like they're not even going to
bother. they just straight that [ __ ]
into like chubby or something like
unless you're doing it for
you know some specific cultural reason
there is no actual need to like learn a
language in a lot of ways and it can be
depressing like even even the the go-to
that everyone says nowadays which is ah
you know I really want to be able to
read things in its original blah blah
blah
okay I I guess that that's one instance
but you could get anything that's even
not officially translated to your
language now and get it translated just
straight into a prompt you could get it
read out to you in your native language.
You know, it's like
the the mystery
is almost being sucked out of it in a
lot of ways.
But on the flip side, I think,
funnily enough, I think uh languages
like Esbranto are going to flourish in
some ways because there's going to be
lots of people who are going to be
wanting the experience of learning a
language without having to put in
thousands of hours to do it. And a
language like Espirano can give you that
kind of experience. I think that's why
in a lot of ways even the language tokip
has been quite popular because like to
pona takes us to the absolute extreme.
It's like you can kind kind of get the
experience of speaking a language even
though it's
like you can't do too much with it, but
you can kind of have the experience of
speaking a language with it. But Esbrano
can give you that full experience
without the thousands of hours. If AI
was at where it is now when I first
started learning Espiranto,
I'm not sure if I actually would have
continued.
Now, that would have been sad because I
would have I would have had this type of
thinking. Wow. You mean this online chat
thing can just translate everything?
Okay. Well, I guess I don't need to do
that anymore then cuz like things like
Google Translate and stuff existed, but
people always mocked it for, you know,
it's been it's bad in this way and that
way, but like AI is [ __ ] it's amazing
now. Anyway, these are just like my dark
thoughts
and in some way like these are very
contradictory thoughts as well because
like I feel like there's going to be a
lot of people want the experience of
learning another language so they're
going to go for languages like Espano
which is going to be great for Espano
and then
a lot of languages
even like massive ones with lots of
resources people are just going to stop
learning unless there's like an actual
reason like I see it as
you You go back 140 years ago, everyone
needed someone who could repair
horseshoes for their for their horse.
So, there was a guy who repaired
horseshoes everywhere, okay? And
nowadays, those guys still exist, but
they're super rare. They're very, very
specialized. And like, there's some
people that actually literally just do
it for a fun, but the vast majority of
people have no idea how that [ __ ] even
works anymore.
That seems like the future of languages
for me.
And in like 30, 40 years, there's going
to be like
the vast majority of people aren't going
to be learning another language. It
doesn't matter what language. They
wouldn't even be learning English
because everything would just be
translated to their language. Like the
the power of English in a lot of ways,
if you look at why people learn it is
because they can go online, they can
find any content they want. What happens
when that YouTube autodub is perfect?
People people always take the lazy
route. So, of course, they're not going
to bother learning English. Like,
they're not going to have those
thousands of hours of exposure because
they'll just hit dub or they won't even
need to hit it. Like, it'll just be
detected on region or whatever their
interface is. So, if you're like
freaking Chinese, as soon as you go to
any English video, it's just going to be
perfectly dubbed, lips, timed,
everything to your language. There will
be absolutely no need for you to learn
English, for example. It'll be like that
with everything, okay? Every website,
everything. you just there will be a an
abstraction layer that just swaps
everything to your language.
It's going to be wild.
I might have to find a new hobby
eventually.
Anyway, that's my dark thoughts. Hope
you guys have enjoyed this video. I'll
see you all in the next video if you're
not there.
Hopefully I didn't turn you