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Show HN: I built an AI conversation partner to practice speaking languages

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/talkbits-speak-naturally/id6756824177
30•omarisbuilding•1h ago
Hi,

I built TalkBits because most language apps focus on vocabulary or exercises, but not actual conversation. The hard part of learning a language is speaking naturally under pressure.

TalkBits lets you have real-time spoken conversations with an AI that acts like a native speaker. You can choose different scenarios (travel, daily life, work, etc.), speak naturally, and the AI responds with natural speech back.

The goal is to make it feel like talking to a real person rather than doing lessons.

Techwise, it uses realtime speech input, transcription, LLM responses, and tts streaming to keep latency low so the conversation feels fluid.

I’m specially interested in feedback about: – Does it feel natural? – Where does the conversation break immersion? – What would make you use this regularly?

Happy to answer technical questions too.

Thanks

Comments

mrconter11•1h ago
What's different between this and all other 10s of different ones doing the same?
potro•57m ago
This question maybe formulated too harsh, but it is valuable. There are quite a few similar applications (I think I tried 2 or 3 of them). Some are around for couple of years. What is new / unique in your approach?
rahimnathwani•1h ago
I'm curious how the experience is different from using live voice mode in ChatGPT or Gemini?
omarisbuilding•44m ago
To be honest i didn't try them. My purpose was just to provide a nice UI/UX to the AI voice model.
redrix•1h ago
Cool app. It takes a lot of courage to share here, so well done. I’d definitely highlight a bit more prominently what languages it supports though. The interface is very “Claude” so I’d be keen to hear about:

- How did you go about developing this?

- Was the entire thing vibe coded or just part of it? No shade either way, just curious.

- How long did it take?

- What were some of the harder hurdles to overcome?

- Given the use of AI, what’s your approach to security of your users data? How did you review any generated code?

omarisbuilding•46m ago
Thanks! I just wanted to use it myself as it's always hard to find a native speaker to speak with when learning a language. The app is partly vibe coded. I myself am a software developer and had no problem reviewing the vibe coded code. I think it took me a little more than a month give or take, as i was not consistent with my commitment. I would say the syncing part of the conversation was the challenging part, which is still not perfect to be honest. As for user data, i don't store much of user data apart from the minutes used.
midtake•1h ago
Duolingo does this, but only for a few languages and it needs some improvement.
omarisbuilding•45m ago
Thanks for your feedback. Yes it definitely needs improvement.
mbroncano•59m ago
I just tried in Portuguese, and it introduces itself as ChatGPT. I was going to ask what can this do that ChatGPT can’t, but no need to answer now I guess.
omarisbuilding•52m ago
Did it? It uses an openAI (gpt) model. I should refine the prompt. Thanks for the feedback!
amadeuswoo•49m ago
Looks pretty good, the speech pipeline feels noticeably faster than the general-purpose apps I've used for lang conversations. Dead air kills immersion after all
omarisbuilding•43m ago
Thanks for the feedback!
bossyTeacher•38m ago
I would be a potential customer at some point in the near future. So I would like to know:

- what languages can it handle perfectly from A1 to C2?

- Pricing

- Any daily caps? I am guessing I can't talk for 24 hours, can I?

- How long can a conversation be until a new one with a new context starts?

0x20cowboy•21m ago
The levels would be great. I’ve tried prompting general purpose LLMs to only use words at particular levels, but they pretty quickly diverge from the prompting guardrails. One might just need to building a custom model trained only on a limited vocabulary.
apparent•31m ago
Crazy that when I search for this in the App Store on my phone, it first shows me results for Talbots, and then when I click "show results for Talkbits" it shows me a bunch of other apps. I scrolled through a bunch but then gave up and copied/pasted the URL. Ridiculous!
apparent•29m ago
I'm surprised that an app like this can be rated are 4+, since any open web browser has to be adult-only. I would think that an app like this, unless it has very secure guardrails.

How does Apple deal with rating apps that tie into LLMs?

vunderba•26m ago
Since I don’t own an iPhone, I can only give you feedback on the landing page itself:

- The font in your “Stop studying. Start speaking.” screenshots is both hard on the eyes and strangely blurry.

- Your ad copy needs an overhaul - it feels clipped and rushed.

> I built TalkBits because most language apps focus on vocabulary or exercises, but not actual conversation

There are MANY language apps which focus on actual conversation. You are in a SUPER competitive space. You need to call-out what makes your app different. In just the last few months alone (just on HN) I've seen many Foreign Language Chat Apps:

SpeakLanguageOnline – Voice-only AI language tutor

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779716

Malan Chat - Full immersion language learning app for 62 languages

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46768430

EnglishCall - AI that calls you and practices spoken English with you

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46714857

TongueFu - Gamified voice-first app for communication

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46553017

Orratio - Practice spoken English by discussing news articles

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46510414

omarisbuilding•22m ago
Thank you very much for your feedback. I will work on improving the app store screenshots and their descriptions.
code443•22m ago
The speaking practice angle is interesting - have you found that users actually stick with it, or does engagement drop off like most language apps? I've noticed the hard part isn't building the AI conversation, it's creating enough novelty/progression to keep people coming back when they could just chat with native speakers online for free.

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