A language model in Natural Language Processing (NLP) is like a smart computer program that has read a lot of books, articles, and stories. Its job is to understand and predict what words might come next in a sentence.
For example, if you type "The weather today is," the language model can suggest words like "sunny," "rainy," or "cloudy" based on what it has learned from all the reading it has done. It works by analyzing patterns and structures in the text, learning grammar, meaning, and context to make intelligent guesses about what should come next.
In simpler terms, think of a language model as an advanced version of the autocorrect and text prediction features on your smartphone, but much more powerful and capable of understanding and generating complete sentences and paragraphs that make sense.