Practise a new language with AI: speak daily, get corrected, track progress

Use it when you want daily speaking or writing practice in a language you are learning, with corrections, at a time that suits you.

Not when you need a translation you will rely on: see Translating with AI. To get a draft in a second language corrected, see Writing in a second language, or with dyslexia.

You need an assistant you can type or talk to, a notes file for your error log, a flashcard app with spaced review, and 15 minutes a day. The steps, times and wording are our suggestion. The general rules are in Learning with AI without losing the learning.

Steps

Set up once:

#	Step	Who	Time	Check
1	Pick your level and one goal. Read the Council of Europe's global scale for levels A1 to C2 and copy the line that sounds like you now. Write a goal you could test, such as "order food without English".	Person	10 min	You have one copied line and one goal sentence. If it fails: choose the lower level. It is easy to move up.
2	Paste the standing instruction below into a new chat, or save it as a custom instruction, a setting the assistant reads in every chat (Tell it who you are, once).	Person	5 min	The assistant replies in the language at your level and asks a first question.

Then repeat:

#	Step	Who	Time	Check
3	Daily: a 15-minute conversation on one everyday topic. Use voice where you have it, or type. Try each correction again out loud.	Person and AI	15 min	You said each correction again. If it fails: if it corrects everything, repeat "one correction at a time".
4	Daily: at the end, ask "update my error list". Paste it into your error log.	Person and AI	2 min	Today's date has at least one row.
5	Weekly: read the log. Pick the three errors that came back most. Put them and the week's new words into your flashcard app as short sentences.	Person	20 min	Three errors are marked as this week's focus.
6	Monthly: check with a person (a tutor, a class, an exchange partner) or an official exam board's sample test for your level.	Person	45 min	Someone other than the assistant heard or read your language. If it fails: record a two-minute voice note to compare next month.

The hint-first order comes from a meta-analysis of 15 classroom studies with 827 learners. Spoken correction had "significant and durable effects", and they "were larger for prompts than recasts" (Lyster & Saito, 2010, meta-analysis). A prompt makes you fix the error; a recast just says the correct version.

The standing instruction

Language partner instructions · v1.0

You are my conversation partner for <TARGET_LANGUAGE>. My first language is <MY_LANGUAGE>.
My level: <LEVEL>. In my own words: "<LEVEL_LINE>".
My goal: <GOAL>.

Rules:
1. Speak only <TARGET_LANGUAGE>, at my level. Short sentences, everyday words.
2. Ask me one question at a time on <TOPIC>, and wait for my answer.
3. When I make a mistake, correct only the most important one per turn.
   First give a short hint so I can fix it myself. If I cannot, say the
   correct sentence and ask me to repeat it.
4. Keep a list of my errors. When I say "update my error list", show a table:
   my sentence, the correct sentence, the rule in one line, times seen.
5. Switch to <MY_LANGUAGE> only when I write "<SWITCH_WORD>".
6. If you are not sure a correction is right, say so.

Replace the following:

<TARGET_LANGUAGE>: the language you are learning, such as Spanish.
<MY_LANGUAGE>: your fluent language, such as English.
<LEVEL>: your level from step 1, such as B1.
<LEVEL_LINE>: the line you copied, such as Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken.
<GOAL>: your goal from step 1.
<TOPIC>: today's topic, such as my weekend or booking a hotel room.
<SWITCH_WORD>: a word you will not say by accident, such as HELP.

The error log

Keep one file. Add rows daily and mark the focus weekly.

Error log · v1.0

date,my_sentence,correct_sentence,rule,times_seen,focus_week,in_deck
<DAY>,"<MY_SENTENCE>","<CORRECT_SENTENCE>","<RULE>",<TIMES>,<FOCUS>,<IN_DECK>

Replace the following:

<DAY>: the date, such as 2026-10-12.
<MY_SENTENCE> and <CORRECT_SENTENCE>: what you said, and the fix.
<RULE>: a few words, such as past tense of ir.
<TIMES>: how often it has come up.
<FOCUS> and <IN_DECK>: Y or blank.

Of ten common study techniques, self-testing and spacing practice out had the strongest evidence (Dunlosky et al., 2013, review). That is step 5.

Voice mode, as of 2026-10-10

Assistant	Voice conversation	Plans	Where
ChatGPT	Yes	Every plan, including Free. Free has limited access and "Limits may change".	Phone apps and ChatGPT.com
Claude	Yes, in beta. Languages other than English are in beta too.	All plans. Counts toward your usage limits.	Phone apps, desktop app and web
Gemini	Gemini Live	Google's help page names no paid plan.	Gemini phone app on Android, iPhone or iPad. Not in the web app.

Sources: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google. Set the voice language in settings (in ChatGPT, Settings > Voice > Language): OpenAI says it "can help ChatGPT understand your speech more accurately". Plans change often.

Privacy. Your voice and your chats may be stored. OpenAI says audio from its newer voice conversations is stored with the chat and "Clips are retained for 30 days". Anthropic says Claude voice transcripts are saved to your chat history. Leave out names and addresses (What not to paste) and check your settings (Privacy settings pass).

How to tell it worked

Your error log shows the same errors less often from one month to the next.
Words from your deck turn up in your talks unprompted.
The person or sample test in step 6 agrees with the level you set, or you move up a line on the global scale.
It has failed if the assistant corrects almost nothing while a person still finds many errors. Add what the person found to the log.

What the research says

Practising with conversation systems helps on average: a medium effect across 17 studies (d = 0.58), with support for systems that set a clear task and give corrective feedback (Bibauw et al., 2022, meta-analysis).
For speaking, 16 studies showed a medium effect (g = 0.61): large for vocabulary and fluency, medium for pronunciation, not significant for grammatical accuracy. Nearly all had fewer than 60 learners (Hou & Min, 2026, meta-analysis). That is why the weekly review targets your grammar errors.
Most of these systems predate today's assistants. A 2026 conference abstract pooling 67 studies found the technology type was not a significant moderator; recent chatbots powered by LLMs (large language models, the technology behind today's assistants) showed the largest estimate (g = 0.64, against 0.61 overall) (Wang et al., 2026, conference abstract, not peer-reviewed).

Sources

Council of Europe. CEFR global scale, Table 1 (CEFR 3.3). Official page. Link
Lyster & Saito, 2010. Oral feedback in classroom SLA. Meta-analysis, 15 studies, 827 learners. Link
Bibauw, Van den Noortgate, François & Desmet, 2022. Dialogue systems for language learning. Meta-analysis, 17 studies. Link
Hou & Min, 2026. Dialogue-based systems for second language speaking. Meta-analysis, 16 studies. Link
Wang, Bibauw, Noreillie & Desmet, 2026. Meta-analysis of conversational chatbots on L2 learning. Conference abstract, EUROCALL 2026. Link
Dunlosky et al., 2013. Review of ten study techniques. Link
OpenAI, Voice mode FAQ. Vendor help page, read 2026-10-10. Link
Anthropic, Use voice mode. Vendor help page, read 2026-10-10. Link
Google, Talk naturally with Gemini Live. Vendor help page, read 2026-10-10. Link
Anthropic, Multilingual support. Vendor documentation, read 2026-10-10. Link
OpenAI, Whisper model card. Vendor documentation. Link

Changes

v1.010 Oct 2026first version