Wednesday, November 23, 2011

The Online Concordance Analyzer

The Online Concordance Analyzer (mp3)

Learning Vocabulary with Just The Word

When a English Language learner have difficulty with a word, on how to use it, and is there any alternative to it, this website will provide a full aid on how showing how a word can be used in any word class: verb, adjective, etc. As stated by the programmer of Just The Word, this website is a new generation of aid, which is by using technology, instead of using a dictionary or thesaurus, to help learners with English writing and choosing the appropriate words in their piece of writing. Just The Word is based on a huge amount of English text analysis, and these data gained from the analysis help to built this web site, with the main motive of helping new learners of English on choice of words or simply by suggesting improvements. There are two types of modes the learners or users of this website can choose from: 'Thesaurus' or 'Learner Errors'. By choosing the 'Thesaurus' button, the website will show semantic proximity. However, by choosing 'Learner Errors', this website will use a corpus of actual learner errors of all types by speakers of various languages. Below is the link to the page and a picture of how the website looks like:



Show Combinations of Words

In Just the word, there is about 80,000,000 words of the British National Corpus (BNC). Below is the how learners can look for words in this magnificent website:

"Type a word into the box and hit return or Show Combinations. JustTheWord will give you a detailed description of the company which that word keeps in modern-day English. To help you find your way to the information you need, in the right-hand frame you'll find the part(s)-of-speech and the types of relation that the word is found in. If you're looking for the right adjective to modify a noun you've chosen, click on the 'ADJ mod ' link. If you want a verb with the noun as its object, follow the 'V obj ' link. Within many types of relation you'll find the uses of the word clustered into groups with a similar meaning. The words that are not assigned to a cluster are grouped together at the end of the relation."

Above is a description from the the programmer on how to use this website and what to look out for. The green bar beside each combination will notify the learners of how strong it is. Technically, the bar shows how often he combination occurs in real life writing and speaking. Hence, learners will have a sense of awareness on how often these words had been used. Below is a picture taken of the a word searched:




What is good or bad about JustTheWord?


This website is primarily good for language learners. This is because the website is totally language-based and will aid student in their vocabulary and choice of words. Besides that :
  • It's free
  • Two type of modes to choose from
  • Examples of sentences on how to use the vocabulary
  • Different forms of a particular word
  • Word class is stated
I have not notice any downside of this website. If any of my viewers discover any disadvantage of this website, please notify in the comment below. Thank you.

0 comments:

Post a Comment