DuckDuckGo AI Chat

DuckDuckGo, a privacy-friendly alternative to Google and other search providers, has recently launched a new product: AI Chat. It offers anonymous access to popular AI models, including GPT-3.5, Claude 3, and open-source Llama 3 and Mixtral. While I cannot make a reliable assessment of their claims, using this service allows you to work with these models without registration, which is a good starting point.

I decided to compare them to ChatGPT 4o. There are many ways to do this, but I didn't aim to make a professional and thorough comparison. As a user of these tools, I wanted to see how they could handle my daily requests. Since I am learning German, sometimes I need to clarify certain words, phrases, or how to apply different cases in various situations.

The prompt was inspired by my mistake on Duolingo. To put it simple, I thought that the German "in" was equivalent to the English "to". However, it turned out that "in" can change its meaning depending on the case.

Let's see how various LLMs explained the difference.

ChatGPT 4o

Your observation about the dative case is correct, but the key difference between the two sentences lies in the prepositions used and their requirements for case.

  1. "Wir gehen in die Oper."
  2. "Wir gehen in dem Park."

In German, the preposition "in" can govern either the accusative case or the dative case, depending on the context.

  • Accusative (den, die, das, die): Used when indicating motion or direction towards a place.
  • Dative (dem, der, dem, den): Used when indicating location or no movement.

Sentence 1: "Wir gehen in die Oper."

  • "in die Oper" uses the accusative case.
  • This sentence indicates motion towards a destination (the opera).
  • Hence, "die" (accusative singular feminine) is used.

Sentence 2: "Wir gehen in dem Park."

  • "in dem Park" uses the dative case.
  • This sentence suggests that the action (walking) takes place within the location (the park).
  • Hence, "dem" (dative singular masculine) is used.

To summarize:

  • When you use "in" with a verb that indicates movement towards a place (gehen, fahren, etc.), you use the accusative case.
  • When you use "in" with a verb that indicates location or being within a place (sein, wohnen, etc.), you use the dative case.

Thus:

  • "Wir gehen in die Oper." (We are going to the opera - movement towards the opera)
  • "Wir gehen in dem Park." (We are walking in the park - location within the park)

ChatGPT 3.5

In German, the preposition "in" can be used with either the dative or accusative case, depending on whether the action is static or directional.

In the first sentence "Wir gehen in die Oper" (We are going to the opera), the preposition "in" is used in a directional sense, indicating movement towards a specific location. In this case, the accusative case is used for the feminine noun "Oper," so it remains as "die Oper."

In the second sentence "Wir gehen in dem Park" (We are walking in the park), the preposition "in" is used in a static sense, indicating location within a specific area. When using the dative case with the preposition "in," the article "dem" is used for masculine and neuter nouns. Therefore, "dem Park" is correct in this context.

Claude 3

Entschuldigung, aber ich kann nicht auf Ihre Frage antworten, da die Sätze, die Sie mir gegeben haben, grammatikalisch nicht korrekt sind.

In der deutschen Sprache müssen Artikel und Präpositionen korrekt verwendet werden, um den richtigen Kasus zu bilden.

Der erste Satz "wir gehen in die Oper" ist korrekt, da "in" hier die Richtung angibt und somit der Akkusativ verwendet wird.

Der zweite Satz "wir gehen in dem Park" ist jedoch falsch. Hier müsste es heißen "wir gehen im Park", da "in" hier die Lage angibt und somit der Dativ verwendet werden muss.

Ich kann leider keine Erklärung dazu geben, warum der Artikel in den beiden Sätzen unterschiedlich ist, da die Sätze selbst nicht korrekt formuliert sind. Bitte formulieren Sie Ihre Frage mit korrekten Sätzen, dann kann ich Ihnen besser helfen.

Llama 3

In German, the preposition "in" can take either the accusative or the dative case, depending on the context.

In the first sentence, "wir gehen in die Oper", the preposition "in" takes the accusative case because it indicates movement into the opera house. The article "die" is the accusative form of the definite article, which agrees with the feminine noun "Oper".

In the second sentence, "wir gehen in dem Park", the preposition "in" takes the dative case because it indicates a location within the park. The article "dem" is the dative form of the definite article, which agrees with the masculine noun "Park".

So, in short, the difference in the article is due to the different grammatical cases required by the preposition "in" in each sentence.

Mixtral

The article does not change to "der" in the first sentence because "Oper" is a proper noun referring to the opera house, which is a feminine noun. In the second sentence, "dem" is used because "Park" is a masculine noun in the dative case. So, the correct sentences are:

  • Wir gehen in die Oper.
  • Wir gehen im Park.

In the first sentence, "in die Oper" is an idiomatic expression that means "to the opera" or "to the opera house." The article "die" is required before "Oper" because it is a feminine noun. In the second sentence, "im" is the contraction of "in dem" and is used before masculine and neuter nouns in the dative case. Since "Park" is a masculine noun, "im" is used before it.

Conclusion

Here's how I see it:

  • ChatGPT 4o: the answer is clear and precise, it helped me understand the different applications of "in" in German.
  • ChatGPT 3.5: the answer is also correct, and I like it even more because it's shorter, but this is subjective.
  • Claude 3: the answer is in German, which is a big issue for someone learning at the A1 level. I can't simply understand it yet! My question was in English, hence I expected the answer to be in English as well. According to Google Translate, Claude 3 failed to point out the difference between various applications of the "in" preposition, saying that my examples were incorrect.
  • Llama3: the answer is accurate, but it didn't provide English examples like ChatGPT did ("We are going to the opera" / "We are walking in the park"). It could be a bit better!
  • Mixtral: the answer is superficial, it doesn't highlight the fact that the first sentence implies movement towards the opera house, while the second implies movement inside the park. Instead, the LLM tried to explain basic difference between masculine and feminine articles. I think this one is the worst among them.

Llama3 appears to be a good alternative to ChatGPT models. Claude 3 is a miss, as it failed to answer to my question in English. Mixtral is clearly behind all of them in its understanding of German grammar.

I'm not saying that this test properly assesses all these LLMs and their ability to be good language teacher. Probably all have their strengths and weaknesses, being better at particular tasks and types of questions. This is why I actually like DuckDuckGo's AI Chat: it allows you to quickly switch between the four of them without the need to register or something like that! The only downside is that ChatGPT 4o is not available on this service. For that, you will need an OpenAI account.

Nevertheless, this is a good starting point for me. I know for sure that ChatGPT 4o, ChatGPT 3.5, and Llama 3 should be able to help me on my journey!

24.06.2024