Generative AI and Large Language Models have great potential for language learners.
They are good at generating natural-sounding language, and we are reaching a point where having a conversation with a chatbot can feel quite real, even if we are not there yet.
A chatbot does not need to pass the Turing test to be useful for language learners, though. At an advanced level, you can simply use the voice mode from any modern AI service provider, and you will be able to have decent conversations about any topic you care to mention.
But what if you’re a beginner?
What if you don’t know what to say?
What if you don’t know what types of activities you could engage in?
Well, then you’ve come to the right place!
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Beginner-friendly speaking activities with AI chatbots
For beginners and sometimes intermediate students, just starting a conversation does not work.
Even if the chatbot can produce language that could have been said by a teacher, it’s not good at managing conversations with second-language learners. If you don’t have an agenda yourself and the language to implement it, you will have a miserable experience.
This does not mean that you have to wait until you reach an advanced level before having meaningful conversations with AI chatbots; you just need the right type of activity. More specifically, you need an activity you can take part in without having to say much yourself, and where the AI does most of the heavy lifting.
Believe it or not, speaking anxiety is a thing even when talking with chatbots. My French is not great, and I actually feel embarrassed when talking to a computer! Many beginner students of Chinese feel the same.
What am I supposed to say? How do I say that? It is too hard!
Three activities you can try right now to improve your Mandarin speaking and listening
Here’s an overview of what we’ll explore today. I have also included some practical tips and tricks, as well as a phrase list that may be helpful when using the activities. Feel free to jump around in this article to find what you’re looking for!
- AI chatbots are not a good choice for pure beginners
- General phrase list for using AI chatbots as a beginner
- Activity 1: Twenty questions
- Activity 2: Guess the word
- Activity 3: Co-created stories
- Some practical considerations when using AI
- Two reasons the chatbot misunderstands you
- Principles for beginner-friendly Mandarin speaking activities
- How much do you need to understand when engaging in these activities?
- How did these activities work for you?
All the activities are designed to work with voice chat, but should work just as well if you read and type instead. Still, the idea is to focus on spoken language, so that is what I will refer to in the rest of the article.
AI chatbots are not a good choice for pure beginners
The activities I describe below are designed to let you practise Mandarin with a chatbot without needing to say much yourself.
They are intended for beginners and intermediate students. I estimate that you need in the neighbourhood of 500 words (roughly equal to the new HSK 1) under your belt for these to work at all, but your mileage may vary.
If you are a complete beginner, you really should not use AI-generated content. Instead, check these three articles:
- Beginner Chinese listening practice: What to listen to and how
- The best Chinese reading practice for beginners
- The best YouTube channels for learning Chinese
You might also want to check Unlocking Chinese: The Ultimate Course for Beginners.
Beginner Chinese listening practice: What to listen to and how
General phrase list for using AI chatbots as a beginner
Some words and phrases will be activity-specific, but there are some that are generally useful to know. You probably know some of these already. Here are the essential ones for these activities:
- 中文怎么说？
zhōngwén zěnme shuō?
How do you say ____ in Chinese? - ____是什么意思？
____ shì shénme yìsi?
What does ____ mean? - 请再说一遍 / 一次
qǐng zài shuō yí biàn / yí cì
Please say it again - 请说慢一点（儿）
qǐng shuō màn yīdiǎnr
Please speak more slowly - 我听不懂
wǒ tīng bu dǒng
I don’t understand - 我们再玩（儿）一次吧
wǒmen zài wán(r) yí cì ba
Let’s play again
Activity 1: Twenty questions
Overview: You think of an everyday object, and the chatbot tries to guess it by asking only yes-and-no questions.
Instructions for you
- Think of an everyday object (perhaps a keyboard, a shoe or a bus)
- Paste the instructions below into the chatbot of your choice
- Answer using these phrases:
- 是 (shì), “yes”
- 不是 (bù shì), “no”
- 不知道 (bù zhī dào), “I don’t know”
- Note: If the chatbot asks a question you can’t answer with yes or no, or where the answer depends, just say that you don’t know to avoid misleading it.
- Keep going until the chatbot guesses correctly
- Feel free to give extra hints if you want
Instructions for the chatbot
我是一个学生，我刚开始学中文，只会最简单的词和语法。你是一个老师，你会用最简单最常用的词和语法跟我说话。我们要玩一个游戏，这个游戏叫”二十个问题“。我会想一个日常生活的东西。你要问我问题，看你能不能猜到我想的是什么东西。你问的问题，我只能回答”是“或”不是“，所以你只要问能回答”是“或”不是”的问题。每次只能问一个问题。你先问大的问题，慢慢一点一点找。不要一开始就问很小的东西。记得只用最简单的语言。我们开始吧！
Variants that don’t make it harder
You can vary this game simply by broadening or changing the topic. To change this, simply change the bold bit in the instructions above. Here are some suggestions:
- A person: 一个人
- A location: 一个地方
- A profession: 一个工作
- An animal: 一个动物
- An action: 一个动作
Variants for speaking practice
These are ideal once you’ve played the game a lot and feel more comfortable with the language, or if your level is already sufficient.
- Help the chatbot more by not limiting yourself to yes/no questions
- Reverse the roles: ChatGPT thinks of something, and you try to guess
Activity 2: Guess the word
Overview: The chatbot describes an everyday object, and you try to guess what it is.
Instructions for you
- The chatbot selects an everyday object and starts describing it to you
- Listen and try to understand as much as possible
- Guess when you think you know
- Guessing more than once is fine
- If you know the answer, but don’t know the word in Chinese, use English
- Extra phrases for this activity:
- 我猜是 (wǒ cāi shì), “I guess it’s ____”
- 继续 (jì xù), “continue”
Instructions for the chatbot
我是一个学生，我刚开始学中文，只会最简单的词和语法。你是一个老师，你会用最简单最常用的词和语法跟我说话。我们要玩一个游戏，这个游戏叫”你说我猜“。你要描述一个日常生活的东西，但你不可以说出来。我觉得我知道你描述的是什么，我会猜，然后你要跟我说我猜的对不对。猜对的话，游戏就结束，但猜错，你就要继续说让我再试一试。记得只用最简单的语言。我们开始吧！
Variants that don’t make it harder
You can vary this game simply by broadening or changing the topic. To change this, simply change the bold bit in the instructions above. Here are some suggestions:
- A person: 一个人
- A location: 一个地方
- A profession: 一个工作
- An animal: 一个动物
- An action: 一个动作
Variants that also ramp up difficulty
These are ideal once you’ve played the game a lot and feel more comfortable with the language, or if your level is already sufficient.
- Reverse the roles: You describe an object, and ChatGPT guesses. This then turns into one of my favourite activities for improving spoken Mandarin.
Activity 3: Co-created stories
Overview: The chatbot tells a story in segments. You provide input by choosing what happens next.
Instructions for you
- The chatbot will tell you a story in Chinese
- Listen and try to understand as much as possible
- After a while, the chatbot will ask you how you want the story to proceed
- Pick one of the options by saying them or just using the number
- Extra phrases for this activity:
- 我选第一/二/三/四 (wǒ xuǎn dì yī/èr/sān/sì)
- You can also use A, B, C, D (pronounced in English, which is normal in Chinese)
Instructions for the chatbot
我是一个学生，我刚开始学中文，只会最简单的词和语法。你是一个老师，你会用最简单最常用的词和语法跟我说话。故事的题目是”小明去看球赛”。故事要有意思，要有一些我想不到的事情。你说几句话以后，要给我四个选项，让我选故事怎么继续。然后你再继续说。说一会儿，再让我选一次。一直这样继续。记得只用最简单的语言。我们开始吧！
Variants that don’t necessarily make it harder
- Use a different topic (just change 小明去看球赛 to something else). Here are some ideas:
- 打车时上错了车
- 朋友借钱后就联系不上了
- 买的旧书里夹着一张老照片
- 突然收到一份自己没订的快递
- 旅行时丢了钱包
- Different frequencies of choices. Right now it says 几 (several), but you could write a specific number here.
- Different number of choices. Right now it says 四, but you could use any other number.
Variants that also ramp up difficulty
- Make up your own alternatives (don’t use multiple choice)
- Change the topic to something that is more demanding
- Add details or edit the story afterwards (writing)
Some practical considerations when using AI
Most chatbots should work for this, but I have tried it with ChatGPT 4o. I would be surprised if other services perform significantly worse. Over time, these activities will only become more effective as AI services improve.
One feature specific to ChatGPT is the advanced voice mode, which is more dynamic and allows you to interrupt the chatbot. You can also ask it to speak more slowly. This is highly recommended, but not essential.
Another thing to consider is changing the input language to Mandarin. If you do not, the chatbot might think you are speaking another language, especially when giving one-word answers.
For example, when I said 是 (shì), “yes”, to the chatbot while trying these activities, it sometimes thought I said “sure”, even though my pronunciation was correct.
If you are a beginner, however, changing the language to Mandarin also means you cannot say things in English. It is often helpful to be able to do meta-interactions in English, such as reminding the chatbot what it is supposed to do if it forgets.
Two reasons the chatbot misunderstands you
If you notice that the chatbot misunderstands what you say, it could be for two completely different reasons:
- Your answer is not clear. It is transcribed correctly, but it does not make sense
- Your answer is clear, but was not transcribed correctly (see my example with “sure” above)
The first issue is not really related to the chatbot. It is more of a speech-to-text issue. This is something I explored more in this article: Using speech recognition to improve Chinese pronunciation, part 1.
There could also be many non-linguistic reasons for this:
- Noisy background
- Poor speech-to-text algorithm
- Voice peculiarities or oddities
- Incorrect language detected
There is not much you can do apart from trying to minimise these problems, but you can at least check the transcript to see whether what you said was transcribed correctly.
If what you said was transcribed correctly, and it is still wrong, that is not a problem with the AI. However, the activities here only require you to say a few things, and I will tell you exactly what they are!
Principles for beginner-friendly Mandarin speaking activities
When designing these activities, I had a few principles in mind. This is not the time or place to explain them in detail, but I will provide links.
- Focus on meaning, not form
- Your answers should build towards something beyond the answer itself
- You should not be required to use more than a set list of words and phrases
How much do you need to understand when engaging in these activities?
Focus on meaning: Do you understand enough to answer? Then that is good enough. It is okay not to be sure about all the details.
If you have no clue, then that is not good, and you should probably work with more carefully curated listening and reading activities first.
But you do not need to be sure about what things mean or why they mean what they do. Be comfortable with only understanding the gist.
There is no pressure here. The AI will not judge you. Take your time. If something goes wrong, only you will know!
How did these activities work for you?
I’ve tried these activities many times in different languages, and they work quite well, but not perfectly so. The main problem is that chatbots still aren’t very good at making language easy enough to work on lower levels, nowhere near as good as a competent human.
I’m curious to hear what you think about these activities if you’ve tried them. Were they helpful? Did they go as expected? What did you learn? Please leave a comment to let me know!
6 comments
Hi Olle, good article. One thing I like to do for practice with these AI chats is to ask it to create a TTRPG-style story or adventure in Chinese (on voice mode). You can essentially play the game with it as it creates the adventure for you. It acts as the DM with you as the player – all through spoken interaction. Although probably only for the advanced Chinese learner, it is good interactive practice for everyday actions like looking around at the scenery, manipulating objects, opening doors and so on. You also get a lot of more advance phrases and descriptions of objects and the like.
Hi Ean! Yes, this is a great idea! I’ve spent a fair amount of time experimenting with this myself, but mostly in English and not for language-learning purposes. It works pretty well, I think. The main issue is, like you said, that it requires fairly advanced listening and/or reading skills to be feasible. I’m sure you could adapt the third activity I describe here and make it more open-ended and more TTRPG-like (which I mentioned in the article, too), but the language requirements would also increase as a result. What kind of games/stories hav you tried?
Hi Olle – I’ve only really tried D&D fantasy-style dungeon/forest crawls and the like. I have actually asked the AI to make games in that style with 5e rules. It works well – I’m also amazed how it understands my Chinese so well. I plan to try other genres but I’m not sure my vocabulary will extend that far! I’m ok with Sci Fi and fantasy because of Chinese-language novel reading. Your article is timely and very helpful for many, I’m sure. AI is a godsend for having complex conversations without needing a speaking partner or needing to feel embarrassed by mistakes. What genres do you like to use it for?
I’ve mostly used it to explore fictional settings I’m building for other projects. I usually do this through rather open-ended stories focusing on one main character living in or moving through a space I want to explore.
I never use any rules beyond simple rolls (basically just to spice things up when the outcome of an action is not given). I basically compile some setting information, generate a character and the opening of a story, then just go.
It works pretty well, although it took some trial and error to come up with good prompts that stopped ChatGPT from either overstepping (deciding things for me) or deviating from the information provided about the setting.
My main gripe is that it seems like uploaded documents are often ignored unless you explicitly refer to them. So for setting information, just uploading a text file works less well than pasting the same information, but this also limits length quite a bit. I have tried a few stories like this, maybe for a total of a dozen hours or two.
I think it usually works really well at the start of each story, but as there’s more and more things that have happened to keep track of, the more obvious it is that ChatGPT really has no clue. It might, for example, drop a hint or strongly imply something, let’s say a conspiracy thing in a group. This sounds very exciting, but it then forgets about this and doesn’t follow up five hours later with a huge reveal, as a human storyteller would.
What the heck happened to chinese-forums.net?
Just gone!
20 years worth of good answers that I still consulted. My whole bookmarks folder, useless.
I asked a great question about reading the Four Classics in English and users recommended great books, that’s gone. Now I finally have time to read.
where do people go now to just shoot the shit?
And don’t say Discord, I hate that service. No matter the topic, it very quickly becomes a little ingroup who boast to one another. Been there, done that.
Chinese Forums is still there, I just checked!