This is the second installment of the devlog for the new language practice tool I am developing.
In reality, I am writing this after I have already progressed but I want to give you a quick catch up on what I have done so far.
The initial idea was to create an app in which I could practice writing in a foreign language such that it could support me in preparing for the Danish language exam.
The concept involved using LLMs to provide detailed feedback on my writing, focusing on grammar, spelling, and appropriate language use.
The first prototype worked all right, but I realized that I need to improve my basic vocabulary and grammar before I can focus on my writing. With that I decided for a slight pivot.
The project now supports practing vocabulary through the use of spaced repetition and flashcards.
The main challenge so far has been to deal with the latency of the LLMs when generating new content. The main approach I've taken so far is to try and generate the content in advance, cache it and then use and re-use as appropriate. But there's still a lot to do here and a few places in which it is not really possible yet to create the content in advance.
The second challenge has to to figure out how to level the difficulty of the sentences. I want to strike a balance in which one gets the dopamine hit of getting the answers right most of time time, while still being challenged enough to learn something new. I am still tweaking this part.
That's it for today. I'll try to write more often so I can sharpen my thinking on the challenges