[mncharity]

Riffing on nearby comments: (2022+n): I don't think living somewhere a language was spoken could ever have been a replacement for living _in_ the language. Contrast the oh so limited and scattered signage of legacy RL, versus the ubiquitous object tagging, with text and audio and interactives, of Apple's newest glasses. The moment-by-moment narrated-life apps. The chatbot making up funny stories and cartoons about things you see, and bantering variations with you. Teaming, both meetups and improv - versus what, constantly starting new conversations with people walking near you?? And I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but for me, learning pronunciation without echo would be like, like learning dance steps without overlays, with just a metal mirror or someone's kibitzing. Living learning versus a legacy call-and-response classroom or paper book - yuck. There's a reason kids historically took so many years to learn language, and so poorly, even with adult focus and peer support. Immersion is just really really essential for learning well. And unaugmented RL doesn't support it.