I was curious if chatgpt could give decent, low level texts for reading practice Japanese, so I asked the following prompt:
“Could you write a story in simple, n5 or easier Japanese about a cat and dog at a park in the summer using furigana, as well as English translations after each sentence?”
The following was the output.
Sure, here’s a simple story about a cat and dog at a park in the summer with furigana and English translations:
犬【いぬ】の タロウと、猫【ねこ】の トムは 公園【こうえん】に 来【き】ました。
Dog Taro and cat Tom came to the park.
暑【あつ】い 日【ひ】だけど、二匹【にひき】は 元気【げんき】いっぱいです。
It’s a hot day, but the two of them are full of energy.
タロウは ボールで 遊【あそ】びたい！ トムは 木陰【こかげ】で 涼【すず】みたい！
Taro wants to play with a ball! Tom wants to cool down in the shade!
タロウが ボールを 追【お】いかけて、トムは 木陰【こかげ】で のんびりしています。
Taro chases after the ball, while Tom relaxes in the shade.
トムは 涼【すず】しい 風【かぜ】が 気持【きも】ちいいと 思【おも】っています。
Tom thinks the cool breeze feels good.
夏【なつ】の 公園【こうえん】は 楽【たの】しい！
The park in the summer is fun!
おわり！
The end!
This seems like it could be a reasonable way to occasionally mix things up when it comes to learning Japanese, even if this wouldn’t be a great primary method. However, there may be some faults, and I’m not nearly good enough with Japanese to decide how good the translations are. What do you guys think?
5 comments
Generally speaking, if a tool is known to make mistakes and you’re not at a level you can immediately detect that, you risk exposure to garbage without even knowing that you did.
Aren’t there whole bunch of graded readers you can use instead? That’s what I keep hearing, based on comments by many experienced community members.
Do not use AI – It clearly does not know what it is doing even at that basic level.
It doesn’t seem very natural. Why use this when you have a nearly limitless amount of Japanese written by real human native speakers?
Thanks for the responses, sounds like it’s not a very good tool to use, especially when compared with all the other resources out there.
https://youtu.be/sVxJ016xb4Q