Hello and welcome to Langtech’s blog. This blog contains NEWS and articles about the Semantic Web, material for learning and teaching English within this context, and a description of some of the Software developed by Langtech.
WikiTests
The WikiTests page contains vocabulary tests constructed automatically from Wikipedia articles by Langtech’s English Language Assistant (ELA). There are two types of test in each post. The first test contains words with their letters scrambled up (or sometimes not). The student’s task is to unscramble them. The second test is an open cloze test where the words from the first test, with their letters scrambled, have been removed and replaced with underscores. The original text appears at the end of the test along with a list of the most important words found. At this point in time no collocations are listed, just individual words. The tests are classified as either Intermediate or above. If you would like to be informed about the latest tests then subscribe to my RSS feed.
The ELA was developed with Flask which is a Web Development Framework for Python. In the words of the authors, “Flask is a microframework for Python based on Werkzeug, Jinja 2 and good intentions”.
Roget’s Thesaurus
While you are here, why not download Langtech’s repackaged version of Roget’s Thesaurus.
Glossaries
If you are unsure about the meaning of any of the concepts or acronyms appearing in these pages then follow the Glossaries link listed under “Langtech Blogs”.
Websever
You might also like to read about Langtech’s Web Server which is an extended version of the Common Lisp Hypermedia Server (CL-HTTP). For those of you who like programming, you can also read about the LISP Technologies that are available for developing applications. If you don’t like programming then don’t worry, because there are lots of tools available for both the novice and professional.
Langtech’s Web Server is now being ported to Python as a part of the ELA project. Sadly, LISP is no longer an appropriate development platform for Natural Language Technologies, hence the move to a Python based Web Development Framework. Python comes with an excellent choice of libraries for Natural Language Processing and the development of Semantic Web applications. More on this later.
