How to learn a language with AI for free
Disclaimer: at the time of writing, I'm at B1 in Dutch, but I think this technique works for anyone from A2 to C2.
Update on 4th of August, 2026. Today, my neighbour with whom we talk weekly, said that my Dutch had improved. Yoohoo!
A month ago, I tuned the way I use AI for language learning and wrote about it in the r/learndutch community on Reddit.
After a month of using AI this way, I've gotten used to it, and it feels almost effortless now. Not gonna lie, I still suck at Dutch, but being able to solve my daily problems in my target language is very motivating.
The approach can be distilled into a single sentence:
Use AI in your Target Language.
But with a twist: the AI should correct and explain your grammatical mistakes.
Below you'll find a global prompt that turns your AI assistant into a language teacher.
Follow these 3 steps to set it up
Works with ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.
1. Which language are you learning?
2. Select and copy this global prompt.
3. Add the copied prompt to your AI assistant's context.
Paste the prompt into the Custom instructions section of ChatGPT Personalization.
Open Gemini personal context, tick the Your instructions for Gemini checkbox, then click + Add and paste the prompt.
Paste the prompt into the Instructions for Claude section of your Claude profile.
Now the hard part: bring your real questions to the AI in your target language. At first, you'll look up a lot of words just to ask a question and understand the answer. That difficulty is exactly what builds fluency.
This Chrome Extension will help you a great deal with formulating your questions, translating AI responses, and learning the words you discover along the way.
Chrome Extension