Playing with LLMs and Foreign Language Content Creation
Imagination time is over. It's time for action.
I’ve been somewhat stuck for a long time. As a lover of efficiency and productivity, I don’t want to embark on a path unless I’m confident in the possibility of success and I have designed a path to ensure said success.
Most people, I think, are better at just starting. They jump in, figure things out as they go, and don’t get as paralyzed by the need for things to be “just right.” I admire that. Voltaire’s quote about perfection being the enemy of good feels like a mantra I should have tattooed on my brain, though somehow it always ends up as an afterthought rather than a guiding principle.
Something I constantly fight but still creeps up. At the same time, I can’t ignore how often I let myself get distracted—by thoughts about career, money, or whatever looks like the “easiest” path forward. It’s not that I don’t want to take risks, but there’s a gravitational pull toward safety and practicality. I end up convincing myself that the more predictable route is the “smarter” choice.
When it comes to tackling tasks, I’m usually the type to ‘eat the frog’ first—get the hardest, most unpleasant thing out of the way. But lately, I’ve been wondering if that approach might be part of the problem. Sometimes, you need an easy win to remind yourself that progress doesn’t always have to feel like pulling teeth. And maybe the things we think are “fun” or “easy” can turn out to be meaningful, too.
It’s the same with ideas. I see gaps everywhere—opportunities that seem simple or obvious enough to tackle—but I always find a way to complicate them. Whether it’s an unspoken need in the market or a small frustration that seems solvable, these opportunities pop up like neon signs. But when it comes to actually doing something about them, I start second-guessing myself. Am I really the person to solve this? Shouldn’t someone else—someone more qualified, more knowledgeable—be the one to step up? That voice in my head always finds a reason to shut the idea down before it gets off the ground."
Something shifted in my brain when I listened to this podcast episode. It talked about Reddit’s huge financial growth over the past year. Apparently the source of this growth is due to Reddit using AI to expand its foreign language content. This didn’t pique my interest but triggered some anger in me. For years, I have been saying that there is a huge dearth of social media content in languages other than English. Although, if I think about it, I don’t think I ever said it out loud. In fact, maybe I never thought about it in those explicit words. Rather, I sought to help myself improve my Spanish and French by seeking out content in those languages. I reasoned that if I was going to spend so much time scrolling on TikTok or Instagram, then I might as well do it in another language. I wasn’t so surprised that I struggled to find content in French but it did shock me to discover that it was almost as difficult to find content in Spanish given that it is the second most widely spoken language in the world. At that point, it occurred to me that any multilingual content creators would do well to create content in a language other than English.
This idea had been brewing for a while, but it felt too big, too uncertain. I dipped my toes in once—I made a small attempt to create TikTok content in Spanish. But I stopped almost as quickly as I started. I don’t know if it was fear of looking silly, feeling overwhelmed, or just that old imposter syndrome creeping in again, but I didn’t let myself follow through.
When I decided to give it another try, I wanted to approach it differently. I thought about the kind of content I love and what genuinely feels useful to me. Meditation podcasts immediately came to mind—not because I’m some sort of zen guru but because they help me, especially when I’m feeling scattered. When I tried to find similar content in Spanish or French, I came up almost completely empty. It was frustrating but also motivating. I discovered a gap I could actually fill.
So, I decided to stop overthinking and just do it. I created a guided meditation in Spanish and uploaded it to YouTube with some help from various AI/LLMs. It’s not perfect and that’s okay. What matters is that I acted on the idea instead of letting it sit there, collecting dust in my brain. I don’t know where this path will lead, but for now, I’m focusing on the small wins. Sometimes, that’s enough.