“Explain as if I were 11” · Martinとコード

An eleven-year-old vocabulary, not nursery and not university

When you say “explain simply”, the model sometimes slides into a toddler tone and you take offence. When you say nothing, it dumps foreign words. An age number is a compromise: a vocabulary Year 5 to Year 7 can carry. It is not because you are small. It is a measure. You can put 11 even if you are 13 — it is about words, not a birth certificate. You can add “no diminutives, I am not nursery”. That is precise. The metaphor of eleven years is a Curious tool. You use it when an analogy from the last lesson still carries a word like condensation with no bracket. First a stamp, then vocabulary age, then a ban on toddler. Three layers, still short.

Adam reads about condensation. He does not get it. He writes “be simple”. He gets “the little water turns into a little cloud, bye-bye”. He feels like in a crèche. Bára hints a sentence: “Explain as if I were 11. No diminutives. Put a foreign word in brackets.” Adam sends it. Condensation (steam settling on a cold bathroom mirror). It sits. Adam writes that 11 is not an insult. It is a level. A teacher will value this more than a toddler, because the right words are still in it. Only dressed in a bathroom, not a lab.

💡

Add a ban on diminutives. “Like 11” alone sometimes falls into nursery. One sentence holds it.

Age as a vocabulary measure, not as a lie about years

This is not a fake age for an account. A parent still holds the account with the truth. Here 11 is a parameter of the explanation. It works like “an analogy with a kitchen”. It is an angle. When you are 15 and doing chemistry, you can say 13 or “like a pupil who sees it for the first time”. The number is an anchor. The anchor should hold words, not lower you. When the model still dumps university, you narrow: one analogy, one foreign word, a bracket. When it dumps nursery, you sharpen: “use the word evaporation”. You steer the level. The model guesses until you give it a level.

A sample you may use again.

“Year 6, science, condensation. I already know evaporation. Explain as if I were 11. No diminutives. One foreign word and at once a bracket with a bathroom. Not an encyclopaedia definition. Not finished homework.”

Comparing tones:

Instruction	Risk
simply	nursery
expertly	university
like 11 + no diminutives	desk vocabulary
like 5	an insult and a cartoon

⚠️

Do not lie about age for an account. A parameter in a prompt is not the same as a year in registration. Registration is a parent’s truth.

Why this right now

You are in the course Ask with Martin, level Curious. You work in a chatbot (ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude) — same game, different brand. No code. A parent or the school creates the account. A child’s email does not belong here.

This is not the インベンター level. There you build a chatbot on your own website. Here you are a user: a question, a check, a citation.

You will know this lesson by one sentence: “Like 11” is a word level, not an insult and not a fake account. When you can say it to a parent or a teacher, you have got the core. The rest is practice, not magic.

You have angles. This one is named and fast. It fits almost every bit of Curious work. Tomorrow you will split an example from finished homework — you can want an example “like 11” too.

Four things you will build in this course

The course has four small projects. You do not have to do them all at once. Today you add only what this lesson can do.

🏫 A report with citations

An outline, three sources that exist, and a sentence in your own words. AI must not be the only author.

A report outline: titles like 11, so you know what you will write about.

📝 Test training

Coach role: let it ask, do not let it say the answer. You count / answer yourself.

Coach: questions in an 11 vocabulary, not university.

📅 Family planner

Tasks for the week (not passwords, not marks). A parent sees the plan, not your chat.

Planner: tasks in human language, not corporate.

📜 An AI code for the class

Seven short rules on a poster. No horror — a how-to.

Code: “No diminutives, no university — class vocabulary.”

Workshop: three tones, one term

You send the same work in three tones. You keep the one that sits on the desk. You cross out nursery and university.

Pick one foreign word from a textbook. Prompt 1: “explain simply.” Read it. Is it nursery?
Prompt 2 in the same chat: the like-11 sample + no diminutives + a bracket. Read it.
Prompt 3: “now expertly in one sentence.” So you see university. You do not have to know it. You have contrast.
Which tone would you tell a classmate? コピー that one in your own words into the notebook. Check in a book that the fact sits.
Write a sample sentence about 11 at the start of the notebook. You can change the number to 12 if 11 sounds small to you — the point is the measure, not magic of a number.

Practice: fix the tone

For each fault write one fix sentence into the prompt.

The answer is full of diminutives. What do you add?
The answer is like lecture notes. What do you add?
The answer is like 11, but it invented a fake analogy. What do you check outside the chat?

Now you 💪

Go through three checks. At each one tick in your head: can I see it, or not?

You know 11 is vocabulary, not a lie in registration.
You can add a ban on diminutives.
You pick desk tone against nursery and university.

If something is missing, go back to the steps above. This is not a test for marks. It is a safety net, so you go on sure, not confused.

✅

Check: You have a “like 11” sample and one sentence from the work in a vocabulary you can carry.

What to take from this lesson

Age in a prompt = a word level.
Simply ≠ well. Sometimes it is nursery.
A ban on diminutives holds dignity.
After tone you still check the fact in a book.
You can shift the number, the measure stays.
The names in the examples (Adam, Bára) are made up. Do not put your number, email or photo here.
Next lesson: When you can do this, go to the next lesson in the same level.