AI as a Greek Tutor

Greek Learning Greek
1

I have a subscription to Google’s Gemini Pro, but I believe this functionality is possible on other platforms.

When I get stuck on an exercise, or when I complete some exercises without an answer key to check my translations, I can take a picture of the relevant text and ask the AI to translate it. At least on my AI, I get a translation in the original word order, then a version in natural language, then some helpful notes on interesting features of the grammar (e.g. participle of cause or attribute or whatever). So far I’ve not found much to quibble with. But my skills are humble at best

Like other applications of AI, I suppose, I might be concerned about short-changing the learning purpose, but it seems useful if you stick to your own “on-board puzzler” before looking for an evaluation.

I’ve had good experiences using the AI as a computer coding tutor like this. I think it can do that effectively for Greek as well.

I wonder what others are experiencing along this vector.

2

hi

my experience with AI is that it is unreliable for Ancient Greek. almost every time i ask questions it returns errors. i am mostly looking for material i can set as exercises or tables of declensions etc. often they contain errors. i don’t ask about translations as presumably they will only be as good as what they found on reddit. analysis seems pretty hit and miss. i wouldn’t recommend AI as a Greek Tutor. one day it might work but not atm. what i find odd is that when i point out errors it seems very ready to accept what i say. i suppose the maxim is the customer is always right?

i used chatgbt as a travel guide in Seville recently and it was very informative. but i questioned it about the archaeological museum and it failed to tell me that it was closed for restoration for a couple more years.

3

I concure with the above advice as AI is far from a flawless method and it’s ability to translate ancient languages is limited at best and quiet capable of mixing up different Greek dialects in a confusing and chaotic way at worst.

However, if you use it as a bit of a puzzle I can see the applications. Talking to the bot and then “checking” it’s work for errors would have the double benefit of giving you grammer practice and improving the interface for future users.

4

OpenL can be a help sometimes, but it’s certainly not 100% reliable.

5

For example, CoPilot gives the aorist passive infinitive instead of the perfect passive infinitive:

Copilot
“The ancient Greek perfect passive infinitive form of βλάπτω (meaning “to harm” or “to damage”) is βεβλαφθῆναι.”