Video

Day 3 – Learning Korean with Only AI Tools

30-Day Tower of Babbling 2.0 Challenge

Hey everyone—Keith Hayden here, the digital novelist, checking in with Day 3 of my 30-day challenge: learning Korean entirely with AI tools.

This whole experiment is part of the upcoming revised edition of Tower of Babbling 2.0. The first book focused on all the old-school methods I used to learn Spanish and Japanese—flashcards, textbooks, drills, self-quizzing, the full analog buffet.

But we’re in the AI era now. And the question I want to answer is simple:

How far can you get learning a language using only AI?

Every day, I’m documenting the process honestly—wins, confusion, fatigue, surprises—and the results will go straight into the book. If you want to follow the project more closely, head to my website (link in the description).

Fitting Korean Into a Real Life

Like the last two days, I once again put off my study session until late at night. I’m a 4:30 a.m. morning person—my brain is sharpest at dawn—so pushing this to the end of a long day is… not ideal.

But that’s part of the experiment. Most people don’t have endless time to learn a language. I definitely don’t. So the rule is simple:

30 minutes. No more. No less. Only AI.

Real life has to fit inside that window.

Starting the Session: “What the hell should I do?”

I opened the session not really sure what to tackle, so I asked my AI instructor, “Okay, what the hell should I do for Day 3?”

It gave me a full buffet of options—survival verbs, sentence patterns, self-introductions, numbers, SOV structure. Too much. Way too much.

It even tried to paint a whole sensory scene for me:

Imagine a Korean street market… steaming noodles… hawkers calling out their prices…

And I was like:
“Look, man. That’s too much. Break it down for me.”

So we zoomed in and chose a single thing: one survival verb. That was enough for today.

Small Wins: “Here,” “There,” and a Nice Surprise

I reviewed what I learned yesterday—여기 (here)—and then picked up 거기 (there) today. Without thinking about it, I made the connection to Japanese:

この / その / あの → 여기 / 거기 / 저기

Same logic, different language.

That moment hit me:
Okay, something is actually sinking in.

Being able to make organic connections means the system is starting to form in my mind. Even if the vocabulary fades, the structure sticks.

After this, I copied the entire conversation into NotebookLM and reviewed the flashcards I generated yesterday. Simple, but effective.

Gemini vs. ChatGPT: The First Real Comparison

With about 15 minutes left, I decided to switch to Google Gemini to see how it handled pronunciation drills.

Gemini’s Strength: Accuracy

Right away, Gemini caught something ChatGPT didn’t.

Yesterday I learned the phrase:
“Do you come here often?”

ChatGPT pronounced it one way. Gemini corrected it immediately:

“Not that. It’s 자주 (jaju).”

Tiny detail, but that tiny detail matters to native speakers. And Google has a massive global language dataset, so it makes sense that it’s stricter with phonetics.

Gemini’s Weakness: Stability

The downside?

On my phone, the live interaction with Gemini keeps dropping. Pauses. Lag. Interruptions.

When it works, it’s excellent. Smoother explanations. Better pacing. More “on-ramp” support for beginners.

But ChatGPT is more stable and predictable, especially on mobile. That reliability matters when you’re trying to hold a real-time conversation for learning.

In short:

• ChatGPT: More stable, more natural flow, sometimes overly generous with content.
• Gemini: More precise, better pronunciation coaching, but less stable.

Both are good—but for different reasons.

End of Day Thoughts

Studying late on a Saturday night, when my energy is gone, wasn’t easy. Korean is cognitively heavy for me because I’m learning almost from zero. But despite that, today was a good session.

A small connection here, a pronunciation fix there, a little pattern recognition emerging—it all adds up.

And that’s the point of this experiment:
Show that a regular person, with real constraints, can still make meaningful progress using AI tools.

Are you learning Korean? Using AI to learn a language?
Drop a comment—I'd love to hear how it’s going for you.

See you in the next update. 안녕히 계세요!