Practicing English with AI Through “Yes, and...”

I recently found a good way to practice English: playing a game with AI.

The rules are simple. The AI starts with a question or a sentence, and I pick it up with “Yes, and…”, adding something new. The AI then builds on what I said, and we keep going back and forth like that.

“Yes, and…” comes from improv, where it’s an exercise: you accept the setup the other person gives you and build on it, instead of rejecting it or steering the conversation somewhere else. Applied to English practice, it happens to push me to do two things: first understand what the other side said, then use English to move the story one step forward.

In the first round, the AI gave me this sentence:

I just found out my cat has been secretly running a podcast.

I replied:

Yes, and I heard her podcast.

The meaning came across, but the AI pointed out that I should have said “listened to” rather than “heard.” “Listen to” means actively paying attention, like deliberately putting on a podcast; “hear” just means the sound reached your ears.

I had seen this distinction in books before, but it only really stuck when I got it wrong myself and was corrected right away.

In the second round, the AI switched to a new sentence, and the game kept looping:

Our office just hired a robot, and on its first day it asked for a raise.

Then it was my turn to pick it up with “Yes, and…” again.

What I find comfortable about this game is that it doesn’t feel like doing exercises.

I don’t need to get it right the moment I open my mouth. I only need to pick up the last line and add a bit of my own. If I make a mistake, someone will tell me afterward what I got wrong.

Speak first, then get corrected: that order matters a lot to me.