- Sabrina Ramonov
- Posts
- ChatGPT for Beginners (Part 3)
ChatGPT for Beginners (Part 3)
Can ChatGPT understand different languages? Can it remember past conversations? Does it have internet access?
Sabrina Ramonov
September 24, 2024
This is part 3 of my free course, ChatGPT for Beginners.
Table of Contents
Can ChatGPT Understand Different Languages?
Yes, ChatGPT can understand and respond in different languages!
ChatGPT was trained on massive amounts of text data, including text from a wide variety of languages.
Whether you ask a question in English, German, or Spanish — ChatGPT can respond in the same language or you can specify a different language.
This makes it a highly versatile tool for multilingual users.
The best part?
You don’t need to switch to a separate tool or service!
As of September 2024, ChatGPT supports over 50+ languages:
|
|
|
When you type a question, ChatGPT identifies the language automatically — this is the default setting when you create a new account.
Then, ChatGPT outputs a grammatically correct answer in your language of choice.
For example, you can ask ChatGPT in English to write a social media post in Spanish, the translate the Spanish post to French:
Below, I give ChatGPT the French post and ask it to tell me about the post since I don’t speak French:
How do you change language settings in the browser?
To change the default setting (auto-detect), you must be logged into ChatGPT.
Click on your profile icon in the top-right corner of the page.
Select Settings.
In General settings, click on the dropdown next to Language.
Then, select your primary language:
How do you change language settings in the mobile app?
To change the language setting in the ChatGPT mobile app, open the sidebar and select your profile icon at the bottom of the screen.
Under App, select the Language option.
Select a language in the dropdown.
What are the limitations of multi-lingual ChatGPT?
The main limitation of multi-lingual ChatGPT is accuracy outside of major languages.
ChatGPT performs best in languages that have a lot of training data available, such as English and Spanish.
In less common languages or dialects, for example Tagalog 🇵🇭 , ChatGPT might not always be as accurate. Its responses might lack the same level of fluency or accuracy.
Generally, the more resources ChatGPT has been trained on for a specific language, the better it works.
Another important limitation:
While ChatGPT can generate responses in many different languages, it still struggles with nuances like cultural references, idioms, or slang specific to a language or region.
Again, this is due to the nature of available training data, which may not fully capture these nuances.
Despite these limitations, ChatGPT’s multilingual capabilities are very impressive.
Whether you want to ask it questions in Chinese, French, or Spanish, it can keep the conversation flowing in your preferred language.
Can ChatGPT Remember Previous Conversations?
Yes, ChatGPT can remember your past conversations!
In February 2024, OpenAI started testing a new feature called “Memory” which enables ChatGPT to remember your past chats in order to make future chats more personalized and helpful.
As of September 2024, memory is available at no additional cost for all ChatGPT Free, Plus, Team, and Enterprise users!
Unlike earlier versions, which treated each interaction independently, ChatGPT can now remember key details from previous conversations: your name, preferences, product, customer persona, etc.
This helps ensure smooth interactions more tailored to your needs.
Whether you're asking for restaurant recommendations or blog post ideas for your ideal customer profile, ChatGPT can use its memory to make better suggestions over time.
Why is this useful?
It’s like talking to a good friend who knows you well.
Instead of having to explain your preferences or repeat instructions every single time, ChatGPT uses its memory to output more relevant answers.
For example:
If you're planning a trip and you’ve already shared details about your destination and interests, ChatGPT can pick up where you left off without needing to re-type the info.
When used properly, the memory feature can save you a ton of time and effort!
How do you use the Memory feature?
To use memory, first make sure it’s enabled in your settings.
Go to Settings > Personalization > Memory > make sure it’s green!
Now, you can teach ChatGPT new details simply by chatting.
For example, if you’re a vegetarian…
You can say, "Remember that I’m vegetarian when suggesting meals."
To answer future questions, e.g. meal planning or cooking recipes, ChatGPT will subsequently remember you’re vegetarian.
In the example below, I ask ChatGPT: “Who am I?”
Then, I tell it to remove wrong information from memory: sadly I have not (yet) written a children’s fantasy book or promoted luxury romantic getaways 😅
Then I ask ChatGPT again, “Who am I?”
And, ChatGPT has successfully deleted the wrong information and used different information from memory!
To use memory effectively — be specific about what you want ChatGPT to remember.
The more precise you are, the better ChatGPT will tailor its future answers.
Here’s a practical common use case for writers, students, content creators, journalists, and marketers:
Teach ChatGPT to learn and emulate your writing style!
Here’s how:
Ask ChatGPT to read multiple samples of your writing
Analyze voice, tone, and writing style
Tell ChatGPT: “Add this to memory. This is my preferred writing style.”
How do you delete memories?
ChatGPT will try to automatically identify key pieces of information and add it to memory, without your prompting.
Because of this, it’s important to regularly review and manage the memories —especially if you no longer want ChatGPT to remember certain details or some preferences are wrong.
There are 2 ways to do this:
You can ask ChatGPT to forget something by saying so in the chat
View and manage all memories at once by navigating to Settings > Personalization > Manage
I recommend option #2.
Here’s how it looks:
Go through the list of memories, and click the trash icon (Forget) to delete a memory.
If you prefer to keep your chats temporary, you can turn off memory altogether or click the button Clear ChatGPT’s memory in the bottom right corner.
Most importantly, you are always in control.
If you’re concerned about privacy, you can easily view, edit, or delete your stored memories, ensuring that your data stays safe and within your control.
Can ChatGPT Search the Internet?
Yes! But with some caveats.
ChatGPT now has the ability to browse the web using the Browse with Bing feature.
This feature helps ChatGPT retrieve up-to-date information, especially when answering questions about recent events, like asking about today’s weather or recent tech news.
The bad news? It’s not Google, results may vary in quality 😅
The good news? This feature is available to all ChatGPT users, including free accounts!
First, select the model GPT-4o from the model options.
As of September 2024, ChatGPT o1-preview and o1-mini models do NOT have access to the internet.
Next, the Bing internet search feature is automatically activated when you use GPT-4o.
When you ask a question like “What’s happening in tech this week?”
… ChatGPT automatically decides whether to search the internet.
If yes, ChatGPT formulates a search query based on your question and sends it to a headless version of the Bing search engine. It retrieves relevant results and provides you with an answer. No extra steps are needed, which keeps the conversational experience seamless.
You can also instruct ChatGPT explicitly by adding “Search the internet” to your prompt.
Check out the example below — without internet vs. with internet:
Without internet:
ChatGPT assumes I’m a fictional character because I started creating content recently. Therefore, my content is not included in ChatGPT’s training data, its knowledge cutoff sometime in 2023.
With internet:
ChatGPT finds my newsletter, youtube channel, and bio online. This enables ChatGPT to formulate a much better, more accurate answer.
Below is another example illustrating the stark contrast without internet vs. with internet — this time for recent tech news about Apple Intelligence:
recent tech news WITHOUT internet
recent tech news WITH internet
Without internet:
ChatGPT talks about how Apple integrates AI into products. An interesting and probably useful answer, but not what I’m really asking.
With internet:
ChatGPT searches the internet and finds the recent announcements from Apple about “Apple Intelligence” rolling out later this year.
This is a very important point:
If you didn’t know much about Apple Intelligence, you might’ve mistakenly thought the 1st answer (without internet) was correct! It certainly looks plausible and convincing...
For this reason, I like to append the following sentence to every prompt:
“Remember to search the internet to retrieve up-to-date information.”
In summary, ChatGPT searches the internet via Bing, offering much better answers on topics where recent information is key. This feature is accessible to free and paid users, a powerful upgrade that makes ChatGPT substantially more versatile.
Has my free AI education helped you?
It would mean the world to me…
If you are willing to share your story and inspire others too! 😍🙏 😊
