Is this the end of all English teachers?

Miguel from Grumolandia here.

Last week my dad introduced me to an app called Elsa.

Elsa uses artificial intelligence to give you instant feedback on your English pronunciation.

Long story short…. my mind was blown.

I’ve been living in Canada since 1996.

Like most foreigners, even after 24 years living abroad, I still have an accent.

When learning a new language after the age of 13, most people will keep an accent for the rest of their lives.

Ok, I don’t particularly want to get rid of my incredibly sexy-times Spaniard accento.

My Antonio Banderas accento happened to be one of the features that allowed me to attract my current mate.

Nevertheless, I still struggle to say words like “pronunciation,” “frustrated,” “entrepreneur,” “international,” and countless more.

One of the main reasons is that Spanish has 5 main vowel sounds versus English which has about 20 vowel sounds.

Most Spanish-speaking people struggle to differentiate and pronounce any of the “in-between” vowel sounds.

To make matters worse, English is not a phonetic language; this means there is no way to know which exact vowel sound you’re supposed to use based on spelling alone.

For instance, for years, I thought “foot” and “boot” were pronounced the same.

Of course, it isn’t. According to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), “foot” uses the shorter “ʊ” sound, versus “boot” using the longer “u” sound.

That is just one example. There are thousands of similar words in English which pronunciation is entirely ambiguous.

Spelling in English is just a suggestion. The only way to know how to pronounce words correctly is by hearing them first.

This is very FRUSTRATING… or in IPA notation: vɛri ˈfrʌˌstreɪtɪŋ!!!

This is where the Elsa app comes along and blows your mind into smithereens…

Elsa listens to your speech and immediately gives you a score telling how close your pronunciation is to that one of native English speakers.

My average is 90% which is pretty good.

However, the remaining 10% is something that, until now, I couldn’t even begin to think how to fix.

Who will listen to me for hours screwing up words a thousand times and give me exact feedback on how to fix all my subtle pronunciation mistakes?

I could pay English teachers thousands of dollars to drive them absolutely bonkers or…

I can use Elsa and get instant syllable-by-syllable feedback on how to say each word correctly.

Then I can say that word a hundred times until I get a perfect pronunciation score.

Which I did…

Here is my score before using Elsa:

And here it is after a few attempts using Elsa:

… and now I can say “frustrating” very well thank you very much.

Is this technology going to eliminate the need for human English teachers?

Maybe not right away. People still need some kind of accountability to practice.

However, I think apps like Elsa are already much more precise in giving feedback than any human teacher in the world.

And this is only the beginning.

Language recognition algorithms are getting better every day.

In 5 years from now, Elsa may be able to analyze all languages in the world, including all the dialects, even local accents.

Do you want to speak with a heavy Scottish accent from Glasgow?

No problem.

Do you want to speak like a drunken teenage Spaniard from Seville?

No problem.

How about when Elsa can speak using your own voice in whichever language and whichever accent you want?

Or when Elsa can replicate the exact way your great-grandma sounded years after she passed away?

Skynet is here… already.

Peace. Love. and Cookies.ai

Miguel @ Grumo.com

P.S: Talking about apps that can change your life… Did you get CourseApp? It’s a fully customizable mobile app I created to help you sell online courses. Learn more → HERE.

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