Use search engines to check the correctness of phrases
At work I often have to correspond in English, and because of undertreated makeovers, to use this offline/online translation/the dictionary. In General, they cope with their work until the case comes to checking the correct phrases or whole sentences. Want to screw anything up from the category of advanced proficiency, but not sure that I remember correctly (a big Hello to prepositions and phrasal verbs).
There are a couple of resources for search phrases, but they are sharpened mainly by common phrases, Proverbs and idioms in a particular language. Besides, it is not known whether the people desired phrase or using it you will baffle even a native speaker.
To solve the problem I used to use Google. The method is simple to indecency: searching for the whole phrase (for those who don't know – the phrase you need to enclose it in double quotes), we get, as always a set of links + a great bonus in the form ofheap advertising the number of pages found. That's the figure we are interested in. If the number of "hits" a little suspicious, to paraphrase and/or correct errors. Again looking. Usually 2-3 iterations obtained a normal result.
Another couple of benefits of the method:
+ regardless of the language. So when "stuck" (the costs of Internet freedom – sometimes you just forget how it was in "great and powerful"), I use it too;
+ a representative sample of well ooooooooooooochen a large number of indexed pages, and therefore the language "alive" and relevant.
What result is considered normal depends on several factors:
— the length of the phrase;
— the prevalence of a language;
the total number of resources on the Internet in a given language (it is obvious that the sites in German much less than the Spanish, etc.).
In General, everything is pretty obvious, you only need a little to get the hand. For example, for common collocations in English the result should be at least hundreds of thousands (why not millions will explain below).
Disadvantages of the method (when using browser):
— tips and search history in browser sometimes cause the gnashing of teeth. Then accidentally choose another phrase from the struggling with quotes. A small thing, but sometimes annoying;
— you need to keep the browser open, which is often harmful to “getting thing done”, that is distracting. Or launch a browser (with all 100+ tabs open with last year. The joke, of course, but not far from the truth. Except that Firefox is not trying them all to load when you start, but it "clears" to download heaps of plugins that are so nice to install and it is a pity to delete).
For the purpose of dealing with the cost method and was written a console programm in Python (2.7) that searches for phrases using the search engines Google and Bing. Example usage:
Couple of comments:
— I got a little carried away and tightened the search to Bing-e, although it is redundant. Remove yourself if it will interfere with a delay of an additional request. As for Bing, if you want to use the source, you need to subscribe to use Bing Search API (5000 requests per month free) on Azure Marketplace, and then create a Key Account (name does not matter). The key that comes default is not suitable (apparently for reasons of safety, correct me if not). In the distribution under Windows the key, of course, already written, but if you stop working, then exhausted the queries for the current month;
— due to the problems Google AJAX API through which a query is performed, the approximate number of "hits" will be very approximate (what I wrote above — sometimes on the order differs from the figures given when using the browser). This problem is known as code.google.com/p/google-ajax-apis/issues/detail?id=32. There is a suspicion that Bing Search API behaves the same cleverly;
The source and the distribution archive under Windows you can take here.
Distribution, it is sufficient to unzip in some folder, and add the path to it in system path.
I would be grateful for links to similar posts/resources/program.
UPD: Abrowser revol0ution suggested similar a post.
UPD: link to the interesting resource Google search of words and phrases in books from the user coffeecupwinner.
Article based on information from habrahabr.ru
There are a couple of resources for search phrases, but they are sharpened mainly by common phrases, Proverbs and idioms in a particular language. Besides, it is not known whether the people desired phrase or using it you will baffle even a native speaker.
To solve the problem I used to use Google. The method is simple to indecency: searching for the whole phrase (for those who don't know – the phrase you need to enclose it in double quotes), we get, as always a set of links + a great bonus in the form of
Another couple of benefits of the method:
+ regardless of the language. So when "stuck" (the costs of Internet freedom – sometimes you just forget how it was in "great and powerful"), I use it too;
+ a representative sample of well ooooooooooooochen a large number of indexed pages, and therefore the language "alive" and relevant.
What result is considered normal depends on several factors:
— the length of the phrase;
— the prevalence of a language;
the total number of resources on the Internet in a given language (it is obvious that the sites in German much less than the Spanish, etc.).
In General, everything is pretty obvious, you only need a little to get the hand. For example, for common collocations in English the result should be at least hundreds of thousands (why not millions will explain below).
Disadvantages of the method (when using browser):
— tips and search history in browser sometimes cause the gnashing of teeth. Then accidentally choose another phrase from the struggling with quotes. A small thing, but sometimes annoying;
— you need to keep the browser open, which is often harmful to “getting thing done”, that is distracting. Or launch a browser (with all 100+ tabs open with last year. The joke, of course, but not far from the truth. Except that Firefox is not trying them all to load when you start, but it "clears" to download heaps of plugins that are so nice to install and it is a pity to delete).
For the purpose of dealing with the cost method and was written a console programm in Python (2.7) that searches for phrases using the search engines Google and Bing. Example usage:
Couple of comments:
— I got a little carried away and tightened the search to Bing-e, although it is redundant. Remove yourself if it will interfere with a delay of an additional request. As for Bing, if you want to use the source, you need to subscribe to use Bing Search API (5000 requests per month free) on Azure Marketplace, and then create a Key Account (name does not matter). The key that comes default is not suitable (apparently for reasons of safety, correct me if not). In the distribution under Windows the key, of course, already written, but if you stop working, then exhausted the queries for the current month;
— due to the problems Google AJAX API through which a query is performed, the approximate number of "hits" will be very approximate (what I wrote above — sometimes on the order differs from the figures given when using the browser). This problem is known as code.google.com/p/google-ajax-apis/issues/detail?id=32. There is a suspicion that Bing Search API behaves the same cleverly;
The source and the distribution archive under Windows you can take here.
Distribution, it is sufficient to unzip in some folder, and add the path to it in system path.
I would be grateful for links to similar posts/resources/program.
UPD: Abrowser revol0ution suggested similar a post.
UPD: link to the interesting resource Google search of words and phrases in books from the user coffeecupwinner.
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