Hello,
1. Can Hal teach English as a second language?
Yes, Hal can help. I have heard indirectly that some people already use Hal to practice English conversations. Hal could also be specially programmed to teach, although this takes extra work. Look on the "Programming Hal with the Brain Editor" forum here for an example of a quiz brain for Hal. It could certainly be modified for English lessons. I don't know of a plug-in for this yet, but there are many excellent programmers on this forum, and they're getting better every day!
2. Can you get software for an agent that looks like a real person?
I purchased the Haptek People-Putty software and I like it. It takes time to learn, but you can "wrap" a photograph of a real person around a 3-dimensional head, and make it look fairly good. The character can then move around and make expressions and synchronize its lips with the synthesized voices. There are other companies that sell software to do this, but they might not be compatible with Hal.
3. Can Hal speak or read Spanish?
Yes, most of Hal's programming works just fine with Spanish. Most of Hal's brain routines do comparisons of word patterns and sentence patterns without regard to what language is being used. However, you have to load up Hal's databases with Spanish conversations, since almost all users so far have spoken English with Hal. Teaching Hal to speak Spanish would involve spending time with him, saying lots and lots of simple statements to him in Spanish until he begins to respond that way. Hal would speak sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish.
By the way, for a mostly Spanish Hal to sound correct, you would need to switch the voice synthesizer over to one that does Spanish pronounciations. Otherwise, Hal would have a strong incorrect accent. However, there are plenty of Spanish speech synthesizers available, and if they are Microsoft compatible, they are almost always Hal-compatible.
Welcome to this forum, and I hope you find lots more useful and interesting materials here! I think that you will find that the members of this forum are very helpful and enthusiastic!
Sincerely,
Don
