Using Google As A Teacher

January 12, 2009 by Josh | 4 comments

Jim Stroud from EnglishCafe.com wrote an interesting document about using Google as an aid to language learning. Many of his tips involve using Google’s vast text index to compare a search to what Google has on hand, for example:

3. Is there a word missing?

By using an asterix in a sentence, Google will assume that a word is missing and search for phrases that it thinks fills in that blank. For example…

By searching, How are you * today?

Google returns search results that includes:
*   “How are you doing today?”

*   “How are you feeling today?”

*   “How are you guys today?”

*   “How are you coping today?”

Click here to see for yourself and pay attention to the phrases that are bolded.

I really like his ideas, as they help language learners (learning English or anything else) to compare what they think is right, to what is right. If you run a search on what you think is right and get 5 results, it’s probably wrong. If you get 150,000 results, you’re probably onto something. :)

You can read Jim’s post here, or download the full guide here.

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  1. Joshua J. Slone’s avatar

    Joshua J. Slone on January 12, 2009 at 11:08 am

    I didn’t know that asterisk trick. However, I’m just ending up using it for non-language-learning searches, like “Josh Teeters is *”.

  2. Anna’s avatar

    Anna on January 14, 2009 at 10:38 am

    I didn’t know about the asterisk either. I think it will be useful for future translations English > German. Upto now I have been typing in whole sentences and seeing what results come up, but I think this method will be more effective in certain cases, e.g. when you know there is a word that is used in a certain context, but can’t quite remember what it is.

  3. The Arabic Student’s avatar

    The Arabic Student on January 24, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    Wow, this is going to be all kinds of helpful. I typed in ????? * ????? and it gave me the word ??? and ????? ? which is just the kind of thing you’d expect. I didn’t think that it would work with Arabic text, but it definitely does. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

  4. Josh’s avatar

    Josh on January 26, 2009 at 8:25 am

    Slone: You are a strange one, sir. :)