What You Can Do and How to Do It

If you are new to the Tatoeba Project, I'd suggest looking at the Quick Start Guide first.

Things Anyone Can Do (Registration Not Needed)

  • You can browse through sentences.

  • You can jump to a randomly-selected sentence.

  • You can look at lists of sentences made by users and export these lists.

  • You can browse sentences by their tags. Examples of tags are Advice, Weather, and Proverb.

  • You can browse sentences by language, with the latest submissions listed first.

  • You can view the latest contributions.

  • You can search for sentences. (Learn the syntax.)

    • AND: giants & baseball
    • OR: volleyball | basketball
    • NOT: baseball -play baseball !play
    • GROUPING: (play baseball)
    • LIMIT TO EXACT WORD: =swim     This finds "swim" but not "swimmer," "swimming," etc.
    • ADVANCED: (he's|(he is))     This finds "he's" or "he is." (he's|(he is)) | (she's|(she is)) =(He's|(He is)) | =(she's|(she is)) (=swim|=swims|=swimming|=swam|=swum) -swimmer
    • ADVANCED + FROM BEGINNING OF THE SENTENCE: (^He's|(^He is)) | (^She's|(^She is)) | (^I'm|(^I am)) | (^We're|(^We are)) | (^They're|(^They are)) | (^You're|(^You are)) (Try it.)
    • For more details, read How to Search for Text.

  • You can read what members are talking about.

  • You can view members' profiles that have been set to public.

  • You can download all the sentences. (Released under CC-BY.)
  • You can register for free and become a member ("user").

Things Contributors Can Do

  • You should learn the aims of this project. Briefly:
    • We are collecting sentences and their translations into other languages.
    • We don't want single words and phrases that are not sentences.
    • Read our blog entry on how to be a good contributor.
    • Read our blog entry about our submission policy.
    • Read our FAQ.
    • You can translate a sentence by clicking on this icon whenever you see it.
    • Please do not forget capital letters and punctuation.

  • You can correct mistakes that you find in a sentence if it is not "owned" by another user.

  • To do this, you can add alternate translations. ()

  • Instead of changing unnatural-sounding, yet correct sentences, Tatoeba.org prefers that you leave these and add an alternate translation.

  • If you feel there are several possible translations, you can add several translations in the same language.

  • You can add comments to sentences.

  • If you find a mistake, but it's "owned" by another user, then leave a comment telling the "owner" how it can be corrected.

  • If you see something that seems strange or you don't understand, you can leave a comment and someone may explain it to you.
  • If you find things that are absolute nonsense or are not sentences, you can leave a comment alerting moderators that perhaps the item should be deleted.

  • You can proofread sentences and "adopt" () sentences that you think are good.

  • Generally speaking, "owned" sentences are more likely to be error-free.  This is especially true if the "owner" of a sentence is not the same person who created it. (See the "logs" on the right side of the page to see who originally created a sentence.)

  • You can add new sentences.

  • The best approach is to search first to make sure the sentence is not already in the database.

  • Search with the sentence in quotes to find exact matches.

  • Another way is to go to the Contribute page.
  • You can write on the wall.
  • You can create a list and add sentences (http://flags.tatoeba.org/img/add_to_list.png) to it.
  • You can add sentences to "public lists."  (http://flags.tatoeba.org/img/add_to_list.png)* You can add sentences to your favorites (Add to favorites) list attached to your profile.
  • You can send private messages to other members.
  • You can record audio files.

Things Advanced Contributors Can Do

  • You can add tags.
  • You can delete your own tags.
  • You can link (http://flags.tatoeba.org/img/link.png) and unlink (http://flags.tatoeba.org/img/unlink.png) sentences.

Things Corpus Maintainers Can Do

  • Read our blog entry on Moderators in Tatoeba.

  • You can also link any two sentences with this URL.

  • http://tatoeba.org/eng/links/add/aaaa/bbbb* You can delete (http://flags.tatoeba.org/img/delete.png) sentences.

  • NOTE TO NEW MODERATORS: Tatoeba.org seems to prefer to keep any correct sentence and even a certain number of non-sentences.  Don't delete items that are unnatural-sounding or archaic without a second opinion by an experienced moderator.

  • You can delete anyone's tags, not just your own. (Since you can't tell which tags are yours and which are other people's, you need to be careful about what you delete.)

Things that Admins Can Do

  • Admins can change a member's status (contributor, advanced contributor, corpus maintainer, admin) and more.

General Information

  • Terms of Use
  • Many of the sentences came from the Tanaka Corpus.
  • Email address for suggestions, etc. = team@tatoeba.org
  • IRC = irc://freenode/tatoeba
  • http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=tatoeba
  • The code is open source, coded in PHP, using a framework called CakePHP.
  • Note that unless you are a programmer, you will not be able to figure out how to install this.

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