AI Japanese Tutor

Your personal AI Japanese tutor and conversation practice partner

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Inspiration

I am an avid learner of the Japanese language and I have always been interested in creating resources that help myself and anyone else also on the Japanese language learning journey, to improve in Japanese conversational skills.

What it does

It is a Japanese voice chat web application for conversation practice. It leverages Chrome’s built-in AI Prompt and Translator APIs if available, and falls back to Google's server-side Gemini API if not.

Users can speak or type in Japanese and receive real-time responses from the AI in Japanese speech and text. They can also translate the AI's responses to English for better understanding.

How we built it

The web application is built with the Next.js framework. On the frontend, users can send chat messages via text or audio recorded via the browser's Web Speech API. When a user's input is received, AI responses are generated with Chrome's built-in Prompt API if it is available, and if not, with the Google Gemini API. The AI responses are read aloud to the user using Web Speech API. The user can also translate selected AI responses to English by clicking on a response. The translation will be done via Chrome's built-in Translator API if it is available, or otherwise the Google Gemini API. For security reasons, there is a backend layer also built in Next.js, which is responsible for making calls to the Google Gemini API on behalf of the frontend.

Challenges we ran into

As Chrome's built-in APIs are still in development, there are understandably less resources and code samples available for reference.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Being able to leverage the built-in APIs for language learning use
  • Being able to launch the project in time for the hackathon as a live web application @ www.aijapanesetutor.org so users can easily try it out

What we learned

The responses from the built-in Chrome AI are unstructured by default and occasionally not returned in the expected format. I look forward to improving the application's ability to solicit consistently structured responses or handle unexpected responses better.

What's next for AI Japanese Tutor

More Japanese learning features, such as for vocabulary, as well as greater personalization for logged-in users.

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Updates

Private user

Private user posted an update —

Project Update 1: Evolving Beyond the Hackathon

Since our initial hackathon launch, AI Japanese Tutor has grown into a full-featured, voice-first Japanese language learning platform. Here’s what’s new:

  1. Voice-Based Japanese Verb Conjugation Practice

    • Randomized verb conjugation drills for JLPT N1 - N5 verbs
    • Speak your answers out loud and get instant pronunciation & conjugation form feedback
    • From the essential て-form to the more advanced causative-passive form, practise and lock the conjugation patterns into muscle memory

  2. Voice-Enabled JLPT Grammar Exercises

    • Interactive quizzes covering JLPT grammar points
    • Voice-input translation practice with real-time corrections

  3. Expanded AI Voice Chat Scenarios

    • Role-playing conversations for everyday contexts (ordering food, asking for directions, shopping)

  4. JLPT N1 - N5 Resources

    • Curated lists of vocabulary, verbs, and grammar points for each JLPT level
    • Clear English meanings, example sentences, and audio pronunciation

  5. Refreshed Demo Video

All features remain free and require no registration - just hit the microphone icon and start speaking in Japanese! We’re constantly iterating based on user feedback, so please try out the new featuers and let us know how they work for you.

Check us out here: https://www.aijapanesetutor.org
Your feedback & support is most welcome!

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