Talk:Summer of Code/2007
Indication of a font not having a glyph for a requested character
> Indication of a font not having a glyph for a requested character
The following proposal is, for the reasons in the comments appended below, not useful
The "comments appended below" do not appear to be present.
For example, the suggested project could be regarded as for a software module named text_and_font_compatibility_tester which would read a Unicode plain text file and would read a font file and would report back as to whether the font could supply all of the glyphs needed by the text.
No comments have been appended giving reasons as to why such a module would not be useful.
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Educational games
Our federal aids preventation institute has created some games for windows which were quite sucessful. see [www.stopaids.ch]
About the educational games about HIV and AIDS - I would like to participate in it, but do you have some more specific ideas, what it should look like?
twext
FAQ document
There is an interesting FAQ document.
The twext system looks very interesting.
glad you like it.. updated http://twext.cc now aims to work with wikis.. details: http://wixi.cc
Question about word order
If the English sentence I have bought a book. is translated into German, the word order becomes something like I have a book bought.. Thus the word order in different. How does the twext system deal with that please?
- Having looked further at twext I am thinking that the twext system would simply put the English version as "I have a book bought." with the English words arranged in the same word order as the German words. This is because such a text would have the German words larger and the English words smaller and maybe in a different, lighter colour: the intention being to help a speaker of English to learn German. This would be good as it could help the learner get a feel for how the German language expresses things.
"help the learner get a feel for (construction in new language)" exactly.. "I have a book bought" may sound either incorrect or poetic, but "I have a book bought" fairly well communicates idea intended by the "correct" construction of "I have bought a book". a flaw in languange methods may be too much stress on "correctness" when "communication" may be a much higher priority.. (with repeated meaningful "communication" in various contexts, "correct" grammar gets acquired) further, there are two elements to the twext system that can help manage variable work order in various languages: 1. chunks can be variably identified, (meaning the twext method can parse word-for-word, phrase-by-phrase and/or full sentence).. thus, no single "chunk size" is correct; variable chunk sizes adapt to various comparisons 2. mut or "marked-up twext" can evolve to map characteristics, including grammar characteristics, and communicate such with variable formating (ie color, face etc)
Questions about tagging the text with grammatical information
Verbs
Suppose that someone whose own language is English is trying to learn Spanish using the twext system. As the text is in plain text strings, it seems as if it would be possible, if someone so desired when preparing some bilingual text using the twext system, to augment the English words with grammatical information. For example, if the English word have appears then that someone could express it, if he or she so chose, as have(1,1) so as to indicate have as in first person singular or have(1,2) to indicate have as in first person plural or have(3,2) to indicate have as in third person plural or have(3,2,m) to indicate have as in third person plural masculine. The third person plural is the same for masculine, feminine and neuter in English, though English uses gender only for people, animals and a few other items like ships anyway, yet the tags could be used with English words if the word translates into the language being learned differently according to gender. Would this be possible using the twext system?
absolutely.. note that the twext method separates each chunk on a new line.. thus, a simple mut or "marked-up twext" language can be developed to add meaning to any chunk of TEXT or twext.. added meaning can clearly include grammatical mark-up
Nouns and adjectives
I remember once reading some way into a book for learning German and was somewhat concerned that at one stage it was suddenly proclaimed that the way to say some particular thing was more complicated than explained up to then and in fact all of the nouns thus far used had been of feminine gender. I felt that I would rather have had the fact that the nouns being used were all of feminine gender at that stage had been mentioned before I started that stage, not in the stage after that stage, as I had then to unlearn some of what I thought I had learned rather than have reached that stage knowing that that only applied to feminine nouns. I am wondering quite how that would intercat with learning a language using the twext system. If a speaker of English is learning Spanish, would it be better for the English words in a twext page (smaller and in a lighter colour) for nouns and adjectives to have gender information of the Spanish words in parentheses after them, so that the speaker of English has that information available when learning?
the "twext" translation (smaller, lighter, betwixt the TEXT to learn) has limited space (often the twext translation wants more characters) so adding characters (ie gender info between parenthesis) to communicate grammar may be less effective than formatting the twext (and/or text) with mut variable font, color etc. also relevant is the output.. twext is designed to work on paper as well as on computer monitors.. output via computers enables all kindsa rich linkages upon demand.. for example, if a user wants MuT grammar analysis, they could filter other possible details to focus on a grammar presentation