AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a fantastic way to improve your English quickly and easily. The advantage of AI is that it can get you information immediately, so you don’t need to spend a lot of time searching through the internet or books.
Find out how you can get started with a popular AI tool, and then how it can help you with your vocabulary, writing and speaking.
Finally, there’s a list of questions you can use to get the information you want.
Getting started
A popular AI tool to use is ChatGPT. Go to this site to get your free account: https://chat.openai.com/
It can get very busy, so keep trying if you can’t log in immediately. When you get in, all you need to do is to ‘chat’ to it and write your question.
It then replies to you, and you can continue to ask more questions to get different answers.
Developing your vocabulary
ChatGPT can help you develop your vocabulary in different ways. You can use it to:
- get a more advanced / simpler vocabulary
- get a more formal / informal vocabulary
- get definitions and examples of words
Here’s an example to show how you can ask it to write something in a simple way.
I asked ChaptGPT to “explain nuclear power to a ten year old”. My next question was “explain in a more sophisticated way”.
Notice how some of the vocabulary changes in the two answers:
way becomes method
make becomes generate / produce
Also, the sentences in the second text are longer, and there are connectors like “in which”. You can also find more passives and compound words like “naturally-occurring”.
Here’s a screenshot of the two questions:
You can also make texts more informal or formal. Here’s an example for you:
See how the vocabulary changes. For example,
novella becomes story
miserly becomes mean
former becomes old.
But you can also ask ChatGPT to find synonyms and definitions. Here’s another example for you.
Developing your writing
One of the problems in writing English is that you need to know the ‘standard phrases’ of letters or emails, and also the phrases for ‘doing things’, such as complaining, requesting, inviting, and so on.
This is where ChatGPT can really help, as you can get a model answer (or template) as a guide.
Here’s an example of a letter of complaint.
Notice the standard phrases:
I am writing to express my disappointment
I brought this matter to the attention of …
I look forward to hearing from you
It’s also useful to see how the paragraphs are developed, and the order of information.
Developing your speaking
You can also use ChatGPT to find everyday phrases for conversations. Here’s an example:
Although this ‘conversation’ sounds quite repetitive and ls artificial in places (“I’ve been great” sounds strange, for example) there are some useful phrases, such as:
“It’s been so long!”
“Time flies”
“How’s life treating you?”
These are phrases you’ll often hear as well, so it’s useful to be able to recognise them.
Example questions
To get started with ChatGPT, you can ask these questions:
Write a text about …
Write a letter of complaint to (person / company) / Invite a friend to a party
Summarise (name of book)
Explain (process) to a ten-year-old (this is useful if you want something in simple English)
Write a typical conversation between two friends about … (this is great for getting everyday phrases)
Give me 5 synonyms for (word) with examples
What’s the definition of (word)
Follow-up questions
Make the text more informal.
Make the text more formal.
Make the text longer.
Make the text simpler.
Explain it in a more sophisticated way.