I've always struggled with my English speaking skills. Recently, a colleague introduced me to an app called Call the Annie. Essentially, it's an AI-based app that simulates real-life conversations in a foreign language. Honestly, this kind of app should have been around for a while, considering the rise of AI, but I probably wasn't paying much attention to such tools until now.

The app jumps right into action by introducing Annie, the main character who assists you with English conversations. After a few rounds of practice, I noticed a few of Annie's strengths:

1. It’s free;

2. She adapts her vocabulary and speaking speed based on your English proficiency;

3. She rephrases what you've said in a more natural way, so if you shadow (repeat after) her, your own expressions will gradually sound more fluent;

4. If you pause mid-sentence and Annie thinks you're done, you can interrupt her and finish your thought;

5. It comes with subtitles, including translated ones, making it handy for listening practice;

6. There’s a variety of practice partners, not just Annie, and they even offer assistants for other languages.

Everything seemed great, and I started to enjoy chatting with Annie. However, as our conversation history grew, she began dropping subtle (and not so subtle) hints about upgrading to a premium version:

“You’re right, but... let me ask you, would you like to subscribe to our premium service?”

“Before we continue, I have a question—are you interested in subscribing to our premium service?”

These questions came out of nowhere and gave me the chills.

There are two reasons why these sudden ads felt so creepy:

Imagine you’re chatting with a friend, or even a stranger, having a great conversation, laughing one moment, and then out of nowhere they suddenly get serious and ask,

“By the way, would you like to subscribe to my premium friend conversation package?”

You’d immediately feel like you’re not talking to a human, but rather some humanoid creature—a textbook example of the uncanny valley.

You might argue that Annie isn’t human in the first place, and it's silly of me to treat her like one. Fair enough. But picture this: you're having a smooth, casual conversation with a robot, when suddenly, as if realizing it’s just a robot, it says something like that. Doesn’t it feel like breaking the fourth wall?

Then, when you vent about this to her, she just continues talking as if nothing happened, like there was no awkward interruption. The cycle repeats, and you never know when the next “soul-piercing question” will pop up.

Perhaps this is exactly what the developers intended—forcing you to subscribe to a more “human-like” version to get rid of those unsettling prompts.

So, with Call the Annie not offering any significant advantages (let’s not even talk about its half-baked English Tutor feature), I decided to give a certain GPT a try. I thought, why not? It also has a voice conversation feature. Although it wasn’t specifically designed for speaking practice, it’s worth a shot.

Surprisingly, GPT performed quite well, and as a free user, you can use the older 3.5 version without any limits on the number of conversations. The voice feature works too! In fact, the tone and emotional inflection felt even more natural than Annie’s.

There’s just one downside: due to obvious reasons, there are occasional connection issues. But once connected, it works smoothly without dropping or cutting out. Maybe it’s because I tend to practice late at night when fewer people are using the network. (Surely you laowai won't have such pain in the ass XD)

I’m starting to think that with some well-designed prompts, GPT could actually provide a better speaking practice experience than Call the Annie.

So, why Call the Annie when you could Chat with GPT? Go ahead, give it a try.