VocabGrabber Takes Any Text, Gives Language Learners Visual Aid
We like tools that are fascinating to use and make users look smarter than their peers. Visualization apps and sites rank pretty high on the fascination-o-meter, and they're also great for those of us who learn best by seeing and doing, rather than simply reading text.
The folks at Thinkmap (the makers of Visual Thesaurus) have just launched a tool called VocabGrabber that is absolutely as cool to play with, as it is informative and useful. It takes any text a user chooses (it can process an obscene amount of copy - up to 200,000 characters, or about 100 pages) and parses it for likely vocabulary words, organizing them in several fascinating ways and showing linguistic and contextual links to other terms.
Between Project Gutenberg and VocabGrabber, students of English (and let's be honest, bored Internet surfers with time to kill) have an intuitive, fun, and completely free resource that is miles deep and wide.
Here's a taste of how VocabGrabber handled the famous "Once more unto the breach" soliloquy from Shakespeare's Henry V, showing all identified vocabulary words, sorted by relevance in a list, with icons denoting the nature of the word and visuals linking it to similar words, all with definitions and uses in the text itself:
Next, just for fun, we threw the entirety of Plato's Symposium into the text entry field and checked out how all the vocabulary words looked in a color-coded tag cloud:
Then, we decided to separate vocabulary about people, social studies, and the arts. We wanted to see linguistic maps of the words as thumbnails, and we wanted the words sorted alphabetically:
Finally, we wanted to see the same results as a list sorted by number of occurrences within the text:
Also, any vocabulary words can be mapped using the Visual Thesaurus, which is available on a limited trial or a rather affordable subscription basis:
Obviously, this is a great tool for ESL learners, for English teachers at certain grade levels, for standardized-test takers, and for students at any level who struggle with comprehension of dense text material. VocabGrabber also seems like a nice way to keep one's offspring from rotting in front of a television.
Additionally, it might be a fun way to spend a few minutes that you, the non-learning adult netizen, would have otherwise donated to the ICanHasCheezburger franchise. Plus, it probably looks a bit more convincingly work-related on your cubicle computer screen than does a wittily captioned photo of a cat with a lime-rind helmet.
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It was my understanding that Thinkmap was the company that made the software that Visual Thesaurus used to create their Visual Thesaurus application. This Vocabgrabber is just another tool to get people interested in and signing up (paying to use) the Visual Thesaurus.
I think it is not correct to state that Thinkmap are the makers of Visual Thesaurus.
When I evaluated Thinkmap long ago, it cost $5,000 for one license and was difficult to get started using.
Now, with a plethera of tools (my favorite is Unity3D) people can create similar functionality with less cost and complexity. Thinkmap was way ahead of it's time, but hasn't changed much since.
I want to hear from Alex Iskold on this subject since he worked with the Thinkmap team and probably should have reviewed this article.
Its just a pretty front end to WordNet:
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
@Samuel - there's a lot to be said for a "pretty front end" - that's what visualization tech is all about. =) And this product is very different, because it parses hundreds of thousands of words (rather than one at a time), which is great for overall text comprehension.
@Harley At press time, an annual subscription to Visual Thesaurus was about $20. And thanks for the "fact checking," but according to the VT website:
The Visual Thesaurus® is developed and published by Thinkmap, Inc.
This is more for students who study litterature than for ESL learners who need more practictal tools to improve their english...
@Michel You're probably more of an expert on the subject than most people, so I'm glad you've chimed in on this post. I was thinking that it might be a good tool for more advanced ESL speakers to broaden their vocabulary and get deep into synonyms and context... I actually wish VocabGrabber had other language capabilities, because I'd love to see if it'd work for dusting off my French or German.
@Jolie I agree that it could be suitable for advanced ESL learners with some improvements, like to call Vocabgrabber when you are in a text than the other way around (more user centric than product centric).
@MICHELN: It is actually possible to "call VocabGrabber when you are in a text." You can add VocabGrabber to your browser toolbar (see instructions in the top right), and then you'll be able to "grab" any online text without having to copy and paste. Give it a try!
wow thanks very surprising
@Jolie O'Dell
All of the relationships between words and whatnot are from the lexical database called WordNet.
More info about WordNet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordNet
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/
Its prob the best looking WordNet application though. I'm not trying to diss it; I'm just letting you guys know about the source of the word information.
For example, search for "ginger ale" in Vocal Gabber and compare everything with this link:
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=ginger+ale&sub=Search+WordNet&o2=&o0=1&o7=&o5=&o1=1&o6=&o4=&o3=&h=1100
on the Princeton site, just click the S next to the word and click around on the link that come up to view semantic relationships.
Additionally, it might be a fun way to spend a few minutes that you, the non-learning adult netizen, would have otherwise donated to the ICanHasCheezburger franchise. Plus, it probably looks a bit more convincingly work-related on your cubicle computer screen than does a wittily captioned photo of a cat with a lime-rind helmet.
Another useful tool for you to manage your mind and your information. 'Noto Personal Organizer' is a mini application or window gadget, that you can move around your computer desktop.
http://www.111download.com/product/noto-personal-organizer.html
Will people ever stop pushing version rap numbers on the web!
http://www.hiphopalemi.net/Sohbet.asp hiphop.!
Additionally, it might be a fun way to spend a few minutes that you, the non-learning adult netizen, would have otherwise donated to the ICanHasCheezburger franchise. Plus, it probably looks a bit more convincingly work-related on your cubicle computer screen than does a wittily captioned photo of a cat with a lime-rind helmet. http://www.gekkog.com
All of the relationships between words and whatnot are from the lexical database called WordNet.