Can AI Speak My Language?

I’ve always believed that learning should feel natural, but sometimes it doesn’t,  especially when the words on the screen don’t sound like the way you actually speak.

A lot of students around me switch between languages every day and are still very fluent in English. But there are students in rural areas who struggle with English. When they look up questions online, they mostly find English-only answers and have a hard time understanding them properly. That affects how confident they feel. Even if they know the answer, they start doubting themselves.

A few months ago, I worked with a friend to create a Kannada-English transliteration guide. I don’t speak Kannada myself, but I wanted to help students at a learning center who were more comfortable in Kannada than English. My friend handled the language side, and I focused on the structure and design. That project made me realize how much language affects understanding, especially when someone is already unsure about the subject. That’s what pushed me to explore a similar idea in Hindi, a language I’m fluent in.

This is where multilingual NLP comes in. NLP (Natural Language Processing) powers technologies like voice assistants (Siri, Alexa), language translators (like Google Translate), and chatbots. The goal of NLP is to bridge the gap between how humans speak and how machines understand.

But this technology is still learning. Sometimes it gets things wrong. Sometimes it just doesn’t get what you’re trying to say. This is not because your words are wrong, but because the context is missing.

Despite these challenges, NLP keeps improving by learning from large amounts of text and human interactions.

Right now, I’m working on a chatbot that helps students ask science or math questions. I want it to be easy to use, even for people who aren’t used to typing perfect English. My goal is to make it feel like you’re just chatting with someone who understands your question, no matter how you word it.

I haven’t finished building the bot yet, but even while testing it, I keep thinking about the people I want it to reach: Students who speak other languages at home. Students who want to be fluent in English, but aren’t there yet. People who mix languages naturally without even realizing it.

These are the kinds of users who don’t usually get tools made for them. Students who want to learn new languages can also use this tool. The bot gives answers in English, in code-mixed form (English + selected language), and in the full selected language. This helps users understand new words, sentence structures, and meanings in a way that’s easy and fun.

Making AI more accessible is about building something that listens better. Something that helps you in your language. It’s about making learning feel comfortable — not just translating words. And that’s the kind of AI I want to help create.