Originally, I had this post titled “The Language Professor,” but during the preparation process and after exploring a few specific possibilities of what ChatGPT can do when it comes to foreign language interpretation and possibilities of its usage, I decided to use the term “Master” instead. I think you will understand why in a couple of minutes.
We know ChatGPT can write code. Pretty much in any programming language there is. Altough it is a bot, a machine, operating on 0s and 1s, so we might assume it should be profficient in programming languages, why not. But it is very, very skilled in human languages as well. ChatGPT can virtually do anything with a language.
me: in which human languages are you profficient? how many?
bot: I am proficient in multiple human languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and many more. However, please note that my proficiency in each language may vary, and my knowledge cut-off is 2021, so some new languages that have been introduced after this date may not be in the list.
As a language model, my proficiency in a language is determined by the amount and quality of text data that I have been trained on in that specific language. I can understand and generate text, but my proficiency in understanding and generating idiomatic expressions, cultural context, and social cues may not be as good as a native speaker.
In any case, I’m here to help with any language related task you have, feel free to ask me any question, I’ll do my best to provide the most accurate and useful response.
Ok, so you know. It does know languages, ‘many more’ suggests it might be able to work in any language known to human – at least to the developers who made AI. Every major language I mean, we know there are basically infinite number of languages spoken in smaller tribal communities, we are not talking about those obviously.
We should be able to communicate with ChatGPT in any language, but its knowledge and quality of communication might differ.
Also, it mentioned that it is limited in idiomatic expressions and cultural context. Well, let’s give him something to test it:
me: it’s raining cats and dogs
bot: “It’s raining cats and dogs” is an idiomatic expression that means it is raining very heavily. It is a colorful and imaginative way to describe heavy rain, but it is not to be taken literally. The phrase is of British origin, dating back to the 17th century, and it is still used in modern English.
Well hello. I didn’t know about the origin. So it does recognize idiomatic expression, it does understand its meaning and usage. You should be getting some ideas now of what can you achieve with this.
ChatGPT can even translate text and not only that. It will learn the context by doing so, therefor you can then continue to ask the bot to rewrite the text to sound more convincing, fix grammar and translate it back. It is up to you to test the translation skills, but they are definitely there and they are huge.
I asked the bot directly, if it can prepare B1 level english certificate test with excercises. Besides reassuring answer that it can and humbly warning that it cannot provide the official certification by itself 🙂 it also gave me bullet points on what the excercises would include:
Then I went on to prompt him:
me: device multiple-choices questions on Great Britain
bot: Sure, here are some sample multiple-choice questions about Great Britain:
Which of the following is not a country that makes up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? A) England B) Scotland C) Wales D) Ireland
The official residence and primary workplace of the monarch of the UK is located in which city? A) London B) Edinburgh C) Cardiff D) Buckingham
You should get the idea now of what it can do and how it can serve you and save your time, resources while actually improving yourself. Just few months ago, this was sci-fi.
Beware just one import note – ChatGPT’s knowledge is cut off after 2021. It doesn’t have latest information after that. That is one big, but most likely temporary, disadvantage. How it can specifically concern us in the example above? Well number 7 was:
Who is the current prime minister of Great Britain? A) Theresa May B) Boris Johnson C) David Cameron D) Gordon Brown
As you can see, here we have outdated information issue. Nevertheless, 90% of preparation is done. Thanks ChatGPT. Let’s move to another task 🙂
