Turn your daily AI interactions into a language learning opportunity. A simple prompt delivers a continuous micro-dose of your target language with every query.
A few months ago, I read about an idea that I thought was brilliant: Intertwining language lessons within LLM queries. The idea is that whenever you ask the LLM, it will return what you asked it for, plus a short lesson in your target language. This way you can pepper your day with short, easy to digest language lessons, without going out of your way to do so.
I'm a frequent LLM user – I firmly believe they can be used in a responsible manner. If used correctly, they can be powerful tools in helping with many everyday tasks. This applies to all of them, and I believe the question of which LLM is best boils down to personal preference. For me, Perplexity has been fully worthy of the "Pro" subscription.
Regardless of which one you use, there is typically a setting for a global System Prompt, and maybe some additional ones that apply only to certain queries. My suggestion is to use the global one - the aim here is for these lessons to appear effortlessly, without you needing to actively seek them out.
In Perplexity, while there is no obvious setting for a global system prompt, this can be achieved in the section for "Introduction" (Under Settings > Personalise), where instead (or in addition to) an introduction, you can add instructions.
This is the prompt I've ended up using:
- Bonus track: Add a small Norwegian lesson at the end of each query - make it short and simple, and related to the query I've asked. Assume no prior knowledge and cover any relevant aspects (pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary).
This has resulted in short lessons that are related to my query (which implicitly means, things I'm interested in) and take a couple of minutes. Here's an example of what a lesson looks like:
Norwegian Lesson
Word/Phrase: Egg wash
Norwegian: Eggevask (pronounced roughly "EGG-eh-vahsk")
Breakdown:
Egg: Egg (pronounced "egg" - similar to English but with a slightly shorter 'e' sound)
Vask: Wash (pronounced "vahsk" - the 'a' is like the 'a' in "father")
Grammar:
"Eggevask" is a compound noun. In Norwegian, compound nouns are very common and are usually written as one word.
The definite form (the egg wash) would be "eggevasken".
Example sentence:
Du trenger eggevask for å pensle wienerbrødene.
(You need egg wash to brush the pastries.)
Pensle means "to brush". Wienerbrødene means "the pastries" (specifically Danish pastries, but can be used more generally for sweet baked goods of that type).
I'm not claiming this is a 100% replacement for traditional language learning, but it can be either a fun complement or a great approach to start building knowledge, particularly for neurodivergent individuals that struggle with attention or demand avoidance.
I love learning languages. As someone with ADHD, the biggest ongoing struggle is to stay constant and keep on top of hobbies. As for many other neurodivergent individuals, it's incredibly easy for me to discard and forget hobbies when they lose their novelty. Routines don't help either – for the same reason, routines feel boring and painful. The best strategy for things like language learning is to incorporate them seamlessly in my day to day so that my executive function doesn't have a say on whether I do them.
While learning through AI is at best a complimentary approach, it gets the ball rolling. And with language learning that's often the most important thing.