Wednesday, April 21, 2010

PROBLEMS WITH YOUR LANGUAGE? MEET THE CONCORDANCER!

Do you have problems with grammar, collocation, or frequency of use? Have you ever wondered what a certain word collocates with? What preposition it goes with? Today I´d like to show you how to use the Internet to find solutions to these difficulties. Here are several videos about online tools you can use.
The first one is about how to use the Concordancer. Do you recognize the voice? I hope you find it useful!







The next video contains more information about the Concordancer…






…and the last is about how to google words or expressions to find concordances. You can find it in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxYEYAck3o4.


For more tools of the same kind, look through the related videos in youtube.

And, as I always ask you to give an opinion: have you found these videos useful? Leave a comment about how you have used them and what you have learnt with this information.




17 comments:

Eli =) said...

Hi! I saw the videos and I have to say that listening to that man explaining how to use the concordancer in such a dull way is really boring! Haha, but the link is great! I didn´t know it.

I use internet for everything, not only to chat or check my mails.It is a helpful tool, as you can find whatever you are looking for. It is the bigest encyclopedia anyone can have.

I love having my dictionaries, but i have to admit that a computer makes things easier and faster, and some times more effective that what you think. For example, i couldn´t understand the meaning of a what a dangling modifier was. I looked it up in the dictionary and there was nothing there. Then i went to the grammar book...still, useless, it was the same explanation. So i googled it. Thousand of links to possible solutions appeared before my eyes. And there was one that really caught my attention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wydWDRwrVHk. In this link there´s a video of a woman explaining what a dangling modifier is. ANd the explanation is excellent. From there i foud another one, made by a teenager,in where she gives another explanation which is not the one that a teacher would give, but it´s accurate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV_2h3ucSUM&feature=related.

marsil86 said...
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Aldana Gómez Ríos said...
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marsil86 said...

Hi! I agree with you this video is quite boring. However, it`s always useful to know websites which may help us developping our writing skills!

Aldana Gómez Ríos said...

Hi! Unfortunately, we haven't been able to hear the videos yet, but from what we can see, we have a similar page to recommend to our fellow students: Just the Word, locate at
http://193.133.140.102/jtwt/
It's a very useful resource for translations and general writing (might be of use to write the essays).
See you!

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Hi! Fortunately, after many attempts, we have managed to watch the videos.  We found the explanation useful, even though the second one was a bit boring, as you have already said. We consider it is worth learning how to use a concordancer since it can help us improve our language knowledge by providing different sources and several contexts in which a word or phrase can appear.
Moreover, it is a helpful tool when it comes to writing, either in formal or informal style.

Dermetallgott said...

These videos are very interesting and they show that the concordancer is a very useful tool to help non-native speakers use specific words and phrases in order to construct accurate sentences and texts.

However (in my opinion), this tool should be used whenever a doubt arises because using it all the time would mean taking too much time to produce any kind of writing.

LELST said...

Hi!
This website helps us to develop our ideas clearly when writing. Sometimes, it happens to us that we have some doubts about collocations or prepositions and we don't know where to find them. Fortunately, that problem is now solved thanks to this page.
Bye Bye for now!
Have a nice weekend! =)

david said...

Hi!
I think that this is very useful tool for it will help us to improve our writing. This is a site I had never heard of, so I will have to get used to it.

Magui said...
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Magui said...
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Eli said...
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Eli said...

Hello!
First of all, I've already used the concordancer and I must say that I found it very useful.
I also wanted to share a diccionary online I've been using for a long time now. It's www.wordreference.com
There you will find a forum as well, in which you'll be able not only to ask about your doubts but also to answer other people's queries. You may be requested to subscribe to participate in the forum.. do so! It's for free!

Unknown said...

Hi people from language 3!! I can't believe I'm writing here. I have tried many times last year but I couldn't post them (I don't know why). Well, I've just watched the videos and I think they are very useful. I've had no opportunity to use the concordancer yet because as I said "I've just watched tyhe videos". However, I already know that I will use this concordancer a lot cause when I check my students' writings I always have doubts ( as many of you may know students have a great ability to make up structures jajja).
See you!!!

Luz said...

It takes me some time to learn to use some tools on the Internet but when I finally can deal with them I realise that they are very useful! I think that learning to use the concordancer will help me a lot in this subject and I can also improve my writing skills

Aldana Gómez Ríos said...

Update! The link to Just the Word that I posted earlier (http://193.133.140.102/jtwt/) seems to be broken, they are migrating all the content and their URL is now the following:

http://193.133.140.102/justtheword/

Enjoy!