ANDREA G. PARRA Granada
Artificial intelligence to learn languages. The subject of mastering another language, which resists so many Spaniards, may be easier to overcome with a new system. It is mastered 8Belts, a one hundred percent online language learning method with which you can learn English, French, German or Chinese. Each student – age in this case does not matter – of a new language will have their route, they must train as if it were a long-distance race; he must trace his way and not faint. At the beginning of the year, if you follow the guidelines, you will be able to speak that second language fluently in eight months.
The University of Granada (UGR) and the company 8Belts have worked hard to find this new method. Carlos Moreno Nieto, director of Innovation 8Belts; Ernesto Martínez del Pino, Artificial Intelligence Architect of 8Belts; and Juan Huete, professor of the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Granada, explain this innovative system. The creator of the method is Anxo Pérez (founder of 8Belts). The current relationship of this company with the UGR is advice on artificial intelligence, co-tutoring of end-of-degree projects and in the near future offer internships.
Researchers and engineers have based the new method on four pillars. The first has been based on a mathematical ranking of all the words in the language, based on their use and combinability between them. For the creation of the method they carried out a complete mapping of the language, as when the human genome was deciphered. A great effort, which took more than four years of work before it was released, by mathematicians, linguists and specialized technicians.
“Is the information all the same? The world defends yes. 8Belts defends just the opposite, and that is one of the main keys to its success. The information is not all the same, it is all uneven. One is tremendously relevant, and one is tremendously irrelevant. This has led 8Belts to create the world's first data return index. Thanks to it, you invest only in the most profitable information, just as a stock investor invests only in the companies that give him the highest return. The word elbow and the word eyes are both part of the vocabulary of the human body, yet the word elbow is hardly ever used. Therefore, eyes should be learned first, and not both at the same time”, reflect Moreno and Martínez.
Detect weaknesses
The other pillar on which this method is based is the intelligent algorithm, a "brilliant" system for detecting weaknesses. This system causes the student's study time to be distributed unequally, granting more time to their greatest weaknesses. “This algorithm learns from the way you learn. And the longer you study, the more you optimize the algorithm for yourself. The ability and learning needs of 80-year-old students cannot be the same as those of seven-year-olds. Thanks to this system, retention is maximized, enormously raising the rate of return for the student per hour of study”.
The third pillar is 'The elastic bag'. “The important thing is not how much information enters your brain, but how much of the information that enters stays inside. Learning with 8Belts consists of a progress in which the balance is very careful, "they defend.
And the fourth, the so-called 'From Teacher-Centric System to Student-Centric System'. Changing the rules of the game, in 8Belts they convert the student from sculpture to sculptor. «It is no longer the teacher who talks the most. The passive learning system gives us allergies and we transform it into active learning”, they point out.
This 8Belts method is definitely different. «It is very similar to the learning of a child or natural learning, first the child understands and masters the essence of the language and then the missing words are learned in a contextual way almost automatically or by asking some that he does not know how to deduce. Just like if we go to another Spanish-speaking country, we generally deduce the vocabulary that we lack on the fly because we already mastered the essence. At 8Belts we do not create islands of knowledge that tend to be forgotten and are of little use to the brain when it comes to understanding language”, they detail.
Mobile, computer and tablets
They point out that "in just eight months" the student is able to speak the language and defend himself in any type of situation that involves English as the main language. They warn, however, that the learning path adapts to the pace of the student. So there may be differences in times. "What we can guarantee with 8Belts is that at the end of the eight months of the route, and as long as the student dedicates at least 30 minutes a day each day, they will be able to speak fluently and function in the chosen language," they advance.
8Belts can be used on mobile, computer and tablet. It is in its plans to incorporate new languages such as Italian or Portuguese. They also continue to work to expand the tools of this system.
In this beginning of the year when many people set goals, why learning languages should or can be one of them. «Learning a new language is, in addition to a great challenge and purpose, an investment in the future. Why? A new language can open many doors for us on a personal and professional level. A better job, a higher salary or traveling around the world without difficulties to communicate with others. With 8Belts, in addition, those doors could be opened in record time”, they encourage from this innovative project.
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