

Little trick for finding the right language construct (using Google) - olalonde
http://www.irosetta.com/questions/141/little-trick-for-finding-the-right-language-construct

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raffi
I work on the grammar checking software After the Deadline and I use this
trick all the time. I'm working on making my software support more languages
and I have to rely on this to tell if something my software says is indeed
accurate or not. Like pawing in the dark. :)

For English I use it at times too. If someone says "hey, you flagged this word
as misused". I paste the window or words AtD can see into Google with the
original word and later the suggestion. I then compare to see if it's
reasonable my software made the decision it made with the limited context it
looks at (2 words to the left, 1 to the right for misused words).

Fun stuff.

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olalonde
Interesting insight, thanks for sharing :)

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xuhu
What if you're trying to learn a new, popular language and you can't come up
with one plausible construct, let alone two ?

The gutenberg project may be of help: if books are available in both a
language you know as well as one you're trying to learn, it's highly probable
you'll find your expression there, and the translation is next to trivial.

This is better than googling, for the reason stated above, but also Not
Implemented Yet.

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coliveira
Sometimes helpful, but no one should use this method as authoritative. There
are plenty of wrong constructions in English (or any other language) that are
more popular than the correct ones. Using an "old style" grammar and/or
dictionary is still more accurate.

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mallipeddi
I've done this several times. More than blindly looking at the number of
search results returned like this article suggests, I actually look for some
authoritative websites in the results (like NYT, WashingtonPost, or credible
blogs). If it's good enough for NYT, it's good enough for me!

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olalonde
If you know any similar trick, let me know in the comments !

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gurtwo
Type a foreign name, click 'Images', see if that's male or female.

When you work in a multinational company like me, that's handy.

Both tricks are quite obvious. I've used them for years.

