Version at: 13/12/2019, 04:59 vs. version at: 13/12/2019, 05:05
11#How to Search for Text
22
33Return to [tatoeba.org](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/advanced_search).
44
55
66## Important Notes
77
88The search engine on tatoeba.org (Manticore, previously Sphinx) doesn't work like other standard search engines.
99
1010You can't use ? or ! in your searches in the way you would normally expect to use them, so you need to search for sentences without using these punctuation marks.
1111
1212Also, if you are searching for sentences in a language (such as Japanese or Chinese) that does not put spaces between words, be sure to see the section [Languages without word boundaries](https://en.wiki.tatoeba.org/articles/show/text-search#languages-without-word-boundaries) below.
1313
1414## Tatoeba.org uses [Manticore Search](http://manticoresearch.com/)
1515
1616These instructions tell you how to use the search bar at the top of every Tatoeba page. Our search works much like a search engine such as Google, but has some important differences.
1717
1818* To find English sentences with "live", "lives", "living" or "lived", search for the word "live". (This will also find sentences with "Live", "Living", etc., since capitalization is ignored.)
1919
2020 * [live](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=live+&from=eng&to=und)
2121
2222* To match a word exactly (ignoring capitalization), put an equals sign (=) before it.
2323
2424 * [=live](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%3Dlive+&from=eng&to=und)
2525
2626* Leave punctuation out of your search string. Most punctuation will be ignored, but a final exclamation mark (!) or question mark (?) will actually interfere with the search. These symbols have other purposes, as described later on this page.
2727 * The following yields no results:
2828
2929 * [how strange!](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=how+strange!&from=eng&to=und)
3030
3131 * but this search will find *How strange!* among other results:
3232
3333 * [how strange](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=how+strange&from=eng&to=und)
3434
3535* Put a $ after a word to find sentences ending with that word. The example finds English sentences ending with "Tom".
3636
3737 * [Tom$](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=Tom%24&from=eng&to=und)
3838
3939* Most punctuation symbols cannot be found via a search. However, $ and _ are special. You can search for sentences containing either of these characters by putting a backslash before the symbol.
4040
4141 * [\$](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%5C%24&from=und&to=und)
4242
4343* Put a ^ before a word to find sentences beginning with that word. The example finds English sentences beginning with "Tom".
4444
4545 * [^Tom](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%5ETom&from=eng&to=und)
4646
4747* This example finds English sentences beginning with "Tom" and ending with "Mary".
4848
4949 * [^Tom Mary$](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%5ETom+Mary%24&from=eng&to=und)
5050
5151* This example finds English sentences beginning with either "Tom" or "He".
5252
5353 * [(^Tom|^He)](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%28%5ETom%7C%5EHe%29&from=eng&to=und)
5454
5555* This example finds English sentences including any of the following words: fasting, fasted, or fasts. Using the equals sign means you'll get exact matches, thus you will avoid the adjective forms: fast, faster and fastest.
5656
5757 * [(=fasting|=fasted|=fasts)](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%28%3Dfasting%7C%3Dfasted%7C%3Dfasts%29&from=eng&to=und)
5858
5959* To search for a phrase, put quotes (") around it. Put an equals sign in front of each word that you want to be matched exactly. Or put an equals sign directly before the quotes to match every word in the quotes.
6060 * If you want to see phrases like "live in Boston", "living in Boston", or "lives in Boston", use the following search:
6161
6262 * ["live in boston"](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22live+in+boston%22&from=eng&to=und)
6363
6464 * The following searches will only find sentences with the exact phrase "live in Boston".
6565
6666 * ["=live =in =boston"](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22%3Dlive+%3Din+%3Dboston%22&from=eng&to=und)
6767 * [="live in boston"](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%3D%22live+in+boston%22&from=eng&to=und)
6868
6969 * This search will only find sentences consisting of the exact words "I live in Boston", without any additional words.
7070
7171 * ["^I =live =in =Boston$"](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22%5EI+%3Dlive+%3Din+%3DBoston%24%22&from=eng&to=und)
7272
7373* This example finds English sentences that have "Tom", but don't begin with "Tom."
7474
7575 * [-^Tom Tom](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=-%5ETom+Tom&from=eng&to=und)
7676
7777* This example finds English sentences that have "Tom", but don't begin or end with "Tom."
7878
7979 * [-^Tom Tom -Tom$](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=-%5ETom+Tom+-Tom%24&from=eng&to=und)
8080
8181* The question mark (?) as part of a word is a one-letter wildcard.
8282
8383 * The following will find sentences with either "whenever" and "wherever."
8484
8585 * [whe?ever](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=whe%3Fever&from=und&to=und)
8686
8787 * The following will find sentences with with 6-letter words that have 2 letters, and then "eve" and then one more letter, such as "clever" "eleven", "peeves", "uneven", ...
8888
8989 * [??eve?](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%3F%3Feve%3F&from=eng&to=und)
9090
9191* This example finds English sentences that have "Tom", then 2 words, then "Mary", then 1 word, and then "John."
9292
9393 * ["Tom * * Mary * John"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22Tom+*+*+Mary+*+John%22&from=eng&to=und)
9494
9595* This example finds English sentences that start with "Tom", then 3 words, then ends with "Mary".
9696
9797 * ["^Tom * * * Mary$"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22%5ETom+*+*+*+Mary%24%22&from=und&to=und)
9898
9999* This example finds English sentences that have words beginning with "red", including the word "red". (3 letters or more are required.)
100100
101101 * [red*](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=red*&from=eng&to=und)
102102
103103* This example finds English sentences that have words ending with "red", including the word "red".
104104
105105 * [*red](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=*red&from=eng&to=und)
106106
107107* This example finds English sentences that have words containing the word "red", including the word "red".
108108
109109 * [\*red\*](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=*red*&from=eng&to=und)
110110
111111* This example finds English sentences that have the word "French", but don't have the word "Tom"
112112
113113 * [French -Tom](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=French+-Tom&from=eng&to=und)
114114
115115* This example will find sentences with "cheek" (in any form: cheeks, etc.) that don't include any of the words preceded by a minus sign (-).
116116
117117 * [cheek -tear -slap -burn -red -hollow](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=cheek+-tear+-slap+-burn+-red+-hollow&from=eng&to=und)
118118
119119* This example finds sentences in which the word "cat" comes before the word "dog."
120120
121121 * [cat << dog](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=cat+%3C%3C+dog&from=eng&to=und)
122122
123123* This example finds sentences that contain at least two of the words "cat", "dog", and "fish" (a "quorum search").
124124
125125 * ["cat dog fish"/2](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22cat+dog+fish%22/2&from=eng&to=und)
126126
127127
128128### How to limit sentences to "I can" without getting "I can't".
129129
130130* This shows just sentences beginning with "I can't."
131131
132132 * ["^I =can't"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?from=eng&to=und&has_audio=yes&sort=created&query=%22%5EI+%3Dcan%27t%22)
133133
134134* However, this search shows both the "I can" and "I can't" sentences.
135135
136136 * ["^I =can"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?from=eng&to=und&has_audio=yes&sort=created&query=%22%5EI+%3Dcan%22)
137137
138138* To just get "I can" sentences, without the "I can't" sentences, use this search. (Note that the quotes are necessary.)
139139
140140 * ["^I =can" -"can't"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?from=eng&to=und&has_audio=yes&sort=created&query=%22%5EI+%3Dcan%22+-"can%27t")
141141
142142
143143### How do I search for "of" followed by words ending in "ing" without any intervening words?
144144
145145 * [of NEAR/1 *ing -"*ing of"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=of+NEAR%2F1+*ing+-%22*ing+of%22&from=eng&to=none&user=&orphans=no&unapproved=no&has_audio=&tags=&list=&native=&trans_filter=limit&trans_to=und&trans_link=&trans_user=&trans_orphan=&trans_unapproved=&trans_has_audio=&sort=words&sort_reverse=) Use the advanced search, sorting by "fewest words."
146146
147147 * Notes
148148 * The above link works correctly, but there is a bug in the wiki that makes it so the asterisks are not properly displayed in the above link, so you need to put an asterisk before both of the "ing" strings. *ing
149 * the -"ing of" part if necessary to avoid getting the -ing word before "of."
149 * the -"ing of" part is necessary to avoid getting the -ing word before "of."
150150 * the "sort by fewest words" option is necessary to avoid search results that favor sentences that contain multiple occurrences of *ing,
151151
152152## Using the "Advanced Search" to Find Sentences to Translate
153153
154154You can find several different ways to do this on the following page.
155155
156156[Create a Dashboard of Customized Links for Tatoeba.org](http://study.aitech.ac.jp/tatoeba/translate/links.php)
157157
158158This page has a number of pre-set searches that you can use.
159159If you like this page, bookmark it for future use.
160160
161161
162162## Languages without word boundaries
163163
164164For languages that don't use space characters to separate words, like Japanese, Chinese etc. the search engine interprets each character as a single word. For instance, searching for 逆に will return the same results as 逆 に, which actually matches sentences that only *include* these characters, but not necessarily in that particular order, or not contiguously. So you want to surround keywords with quotes: ["逆に"](http://tatoeba.org/jpn/sentences/search?query=%22%E9%80%86%E3%81%AB%22&from=jpn).
165165
166166
167167## More details
168168
169169The search ignores capitalization and punctuation (unless the punctuation happens to match one of the special characters described elsewhere on the page).
170170
171171In some languages, including English, the search engine **stems** the search words by default. This means that it removes certain trailing sequences from both search words and indexed words. Thus a search for *live* will also find *lived* and *living*.
172172
173173The languages in which the search engine stems words are: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
174174
175175If you want to find an exact match for a word, you must precede it with an equals sign, as in *=live*. This may come as a surprise to users who are accustomed to Google Search, where wrapping a word or phrase in double quotes forces an exact match. In Manticore, double quotes have a different function, which only affects multiword (phrase) searches: wrapping a phrase in double quotes requires matching sentences to contain words in the specified continuous sequence. Simply placing a phrase in quotes does not suppress stemming of its individual words. To do that, you will need to place an equals sign before each word in the phrase for which you want to suppress stemming, or directly before the first quotation mark to suppress stemming for each word. If you want to put both an equals sign and a caret before the same word, the equals sign should precede the caret. For instance, to find sentences that begin with the exact word *Noise*, search for *=^noise*, not *^=noise*.
176176
177177As an example, take the search *like thing*. This will find *like things*, *likely things*, and even *things like*. Adding quotes, as in *"like thing"*, will prevent a match against *things like* (where the words appear in the wrong order), but it will continue to match *like things*, *likely things*, and so on. By contrast, *"=like =thing"* will only match *like thing* (which does not occur in the Tatoeba corpus). Removing the double quotes, *=like =thing*, will match *What made you do a silly thing like that?* Removing one of the equals signs, as in *like =thing*, will find *Such a strange thing is not likely to happen.*
178178
179179Note that a star (*) can be placed at the beginning and/or end of a string representing a word, but it if is placed in the middle, the search will always fail. Also, a string beginning and/or ending with a star must be at least three characters long.
180180
181181
182182## Other search operators
183183
184184* A vertical bar (representing "or") finds examples where either of the words appears:
185185 * *hate | detest* will match sentences with either *hate* or *detest* (or both).
186186
187187* If you want to combine an or-expression with other terms, you need to put the or-expression in parentheses:
188188 * *(red|blue) house* will match sentences in which the word "house" appears together with either "red" or "blue" (or both)
189189
190190* A dash (or exclamation point) before a word prevents matches with sentences where the word appears: *like -thing* (or *like !thing*) will match *I like ice cream* but not *I like that red thing*.
191191
192192* Putting a caret (^) before a word will match only sentences that begin with that word: *^great* will match *Great people are not always wise.* but not *You are the great love of my life.*
193193
194194* Putting a dollar sign ($) after a word will match only sentences that end with that word: *life$* will match *This is the best day of my life.* but not *Life means nothing without friends.*
195195
196196* If you want to search for sentences that contain nothing other than the specified words, use double quotes, a caret, and a dollar sign in combination: *"^i love you$"* will find *I love you.* and *I love you!* but not *I love you more than you love me.* (However, it will find *I loved you.* To prevent this match, use *"^i =love you$"*.)
197197
198198* The strict order operator (<<) between two words will find sentences where the first word occurs before the second but not where the second word comes before the first. Thus _dog << cat_ will find examples where _dog_ precedes _cat_, but not vice versa.
199199
200200* The proximity operator(~_N_, where _N_ is a positive number) following a phrase will limit the number of words that can separate the specified words to fewer than _N_. Thus _"you are *ble"~1_ will find *You are irresistible.* but not *You are partially responsible.*
201201
202202See the [Manticore documentation](https://docs.manticoresearch.com/latest/html/) for other functionality. Note that the documentation mentions keywords pertaining to specific fields in a document, but these are not relevant to Tatoeba.
203203
204204
diff view generated by jsdifflib

Version at: 13/12/2019, 04:59

#How to Search for Text

Return to [tatoeba.org](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/advanced_search).


## Important Notes

The search engine on tatoeba.org (Manticore, previously Sphinx) doesn't work like other standard search engines.

You can't use ? or ! in your searches in the way you would normally expect to use them, so you need to search for sentences without using these punctuation marks.

Also, if you are searching for sentences in a language (such as Japanese or Chinese) that does not put spaces between words, be sure to see the section [Languages without word boundaries](https://en.wiki.tatoeba.org/articles/show/text-search#languages-without-word-boundaries) below.

## Tatoeba.org uses [Manticore Search](http://manticoresearch.com/) 

These instructions tell you how to use the search bar at the top of every Tatoeba page. Our search works much like a search engine such as Google, but has some important differences. 

* To find English sentences with "live", "lives", "living" or "lived", search for the word "live". (This will also find sentences with "Live", "Living", etc., since capitalization is ignored.)

  * [live](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=live+&from=eng&to=und)

* To match a word exactly (ignoring capitalization), put an equals sign (=) before it. 

  * [=live](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%3Dlive+&from=eng&to=und)

* Leave punctuation out of your search string. Most punctuation will be ignored, but a final exclamation mark (!) or question mark (?) will actually interfere with the search. These symbols have other purposes, as described later on this page.
  * The following yields no results:

      * [how strange!](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=how+strange!&from=eng&to=und)

  * but this search will find *How strange!* among other results:

      * [how strange](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=how+strange&from=eng&to=und)

* Put a $ after a word to find sentences ending with that word. The example finds English sentences ending with "Tom".

  * [Tom$](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=Tom%24&from=eng&to=und)

* Most punctuation symbols cannot be found via a search. However, $ and _ are special. You can search for sentences containing either of these characters by putting a backslash before the symbol.

  * [\$](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%5C%24&from=und&to=und)

* Put a ^ before a word to find sentences beginning with that word. The example finds English sentences beginning with "Tom".

  * [^Tom](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%5ETom&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences beginning with "Tom" and ending with "Mary".

  * [^Tom Mary$](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%5ETom+Mary%24&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences beginning with either "Tom" or "He".

  * [(^Tom|^He)](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%28%5ETom%7C%5EHe%29&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences including any of the following words: fasting, fasted, or fasts.  Using the equals sign means you'll get exact matches, thus you will avoid the adjective forms: fast, faster and fastest.

  * [(=fasting|=fasted|=fasts)](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%28%3Dfasting%7C%3Dfasted%7C%3Dfasts%29&from=eng&to=und)

* To search for a phrase, put quotes (") around it. Put an equals sign in front of each word that you want to be matched exactly. Or put an equals sign directly before the quotes to match every word in the quotes.
  * If you want to see phrases like "live in Boston", "living in Boston", or "lives in Boston", use the following search:

      * ["live in boston"](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22live+in+boston%22&from=eng&to=und)

  * The following searches will only find sentences with the exact phrase "live in Boston".

      * ["=live =in =boston"](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22%3Dlive+%3Din+%3Dboston%22&from=eng&to=und)
      * [="live in boston"](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%3D%22live+in+boston%22&from=eng&to=und)

  * This search will only find sentences consisting of the exact words "I live in Boston", without any additional words.

      * ["^I =live =in =Boston$"](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22%5EI+%3Dlive+%3Din+%3DBoston%24%22&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have "Tom", but don't begin with "Tom."

  * [-^Tom Tom](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=-%5ETom+Tom&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have "Tom", but don't begin or end with "Tom."

  * [-^Tom Tom -Tom$](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=-%5ETom+Tom+-Tom%24&from=eng&to=und)

* The question mark (?) as part of a word is a one-letter wildcard.

    * The following will find sentences with either "whenever" and "wherever."

        * [whe?ever](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=whe%3Fever&from=und&to=und)

    * The following will find sentences with with 6-letter words that have 2 letters, and then "eve" and then one more letter,  such as "clever" "eleven", "peeves", "uneven", ...

        * [??eve?](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%3F%3Feve%3F&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have "Tom", then 2 words, then "Mary", then 1 word, and then "John."

  * ["Tom * * Mary * John"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22Tom+*+*+Mary+*+John%22&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that start with "Tom", then 3 words, then ends with "Mary".

  * ["^Tom * * * Mary$"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22%5ETom+*+*+*+Mary%24%22&from=und&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have words beginning with "red", including the word "red".  (3 letters or more are required.)

  * [red*](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=red*&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have words ending with "red", including the word "red".

  * [*red](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=*red&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have words containing the word "red", including the word "red".

  * [\*red\*](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=*red*&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have the word "French", but don't have the word "Tom"

  * [French -Tom](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=French+-Tom&from=eng&to=und)

* This example will find sentences with "cheek" (in any form: cheeks, etc.) that don't include any of the words preceded by a minus sign (-).

  * [cheek -tear -slap -burn -red -hollow](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=cheek+-tear+-slap+-burn+-red+-hollow&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds sentences in which the word "cat" comes before the word "dog."

  * [cat << dog](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=cat+%3C%3C+dog&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds sentences that contain at least two of the words "cat", "dog", and "fish" (a "quorum search").

  * ["cat dog fish"/2](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22cat+dog+fish%22/2&from=eng&to=und)


### How to limit sentences to "I can" without getting "I can't".

* This shows just sentences beginning with "I can't."

  * ["^I =can't"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?from=eng&to=und&has_audio=yes&sort=created&query=%22%5EI+%3Dcan%27t%22)

* However, this search shows both the "I can" and "I can't" sentences.

  * ["^I =can"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?from=eng&to=und&has_audio=yes&sort=created&query=%22%5EI+%3Dcan%22)

* To just get "I can" sentences, without the "I can't" sentences, use this search. (Note that the quotes are necessary.)

  * ["^I =can" -"can't"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?from=eng&to=und&has_audio=yes&sort=created&query=%22%5EI+%3Dcan%22+-"can%27t")


### How do I search for "of" followed by words ending in "ing" without any intervening words?

 * [of NEAR/1 *ing -"*ing of"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=of+NEAR%2F1+*ing+-%22*ing+of%22&from=eng&to=none&user=&orphans=no&unapproved=no&has_audio=&tags=&list=&native=&trans_filter=limit&trans_to=und&trans_link=&trans_user=&trans_orphan=&trans_unapproved=&trans_has_audio=&sort=words&sort_reverse=)  Use the advanced search, sorting by "fewest words." 

 * Notes
   * The above link works correctly, but there is a bug in the wiki that makes it so the asterisks are not properly displayed in the above link, so you need to put an asterisk before both of the "ing" strings.  *ing
   * the -"ing of" part if necessary to avoid getting the -ing word before "of."
   * the "sort by fewest words" option is necessary to avoid search results that favor sentences that contain multiple occurrences of *ing,

## Using the "Advanced Search" to Find Sentences to Translate

You can find several different ways to do this on the following page.

[Create a Dashboard of Customized Links for Tatoeba.org](http://study.aitech.ac.jp/tatoeba/translate/links.php)

This page has a number of pre-set searches that you can use.
If you like this page, bookmark it for future use.


## Languages without word boundaries

For languages that don't use space characters to separate words, like Japanese, Chinese etc. the search engine interprets each character as a single word. For instance, searching for 逆に will return the same results as 逆 に, which actually matches sentences that only *include* these characters, but not necessarily in that particular order, or not contiguously. So you want to surround keywords with quotes: ["逆に"](http://tatoeba.org/jpn/sentences/search?query=%22%E9%80%86%E3%81%AB%22&from=jpn).


## More details

The search ignores capitalization and punctuation (unless the punctuation happens to match one of the special characters described elsewhere on the page). 

In some languages, including English, the search engine **stems** the search words by default. This means that it removes certain trailing sequences from both search words and indexed words. Thus a search for *live* will also find *lived* and *living*.

The languages in which the search engine stems words are: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

If you want to find an exact match for a word, you must precede it with an equals sign, as in *=live*. This may come as a surprise to users who are accustomed to Google Search, where wrapping a word or phrase in double quotes forces an exact match. In Manticore, double quotes have a different function, which only affects multiword (phrase) searches: wrapping a phrase in double quotes requires matching sentences to contain words in the specified continuous sequence. Simply placing a phrase in quotes does not suppress stemming of its individual words. To do that, you will need to place an equals sign before each word in the phrase for which you want to suppress stemming, or directly before the first quotation mark to suppress stemming for each word. If you want to put both an equals sign and a caret before the same word, the equals sign should precede the caret. For instance, to find sentences that begin with the exact word *Noise*, search for *=^noise*, not *^=noise*.

As an example, take the search *like thing*. This will find *like things*, *likely things*, and even *things like*. Adding quotes, as in *"like thing"*, will prevent a match against *things like* (where the words appear in the wrong order), but it will continue to match *like things*, *likely things*, and so on. By contrast, *"=like =thing"* will only match *like thing* (which does not occur in the Tatoeba corpus). Removing the double quotes, *=like =thing*, will match *What made you do a silly thing like that?* Removing one of the equals signs, as in *like =thing*, will find *Such a strange thing is not likely to happen.* 

Note that a star (*) can be placed at the beginning and/or end of a string representing a word, but it if is placed in the middle, the search will always fail. Also, a string beginning and/or ending with a star must be at least three characters long.


## Other search operators

* A vertical bar (representing "or") finds examples where either of the words appears:
  *    *hate | detest* will match sentences with either *hate* or *detest* (or both). 

* If you want to combine an or-expression with other terms, you need to put the or-expression in parentheses: 
  *    *(red|blue) house* will match sentences in which the word "house" appears together with either "red" or "blue" (or both) 

* A dash (or exclamation point) before a word prevents matches with sentences where the word appears: *like -thing* (or *like !thing*) will match *I like ice cream* but not *I like that red thing*.

* Putting a caret (^) before a word will match only sentences that begin with that word: *^great* will match *Great people are not always wise.* but not *You are the great love of my life.*

* Putting a dollar sign ($) after a word will match only sentences that end with that word: *life$* will match *This is the best day of my life.* but not *Life means nothing without friends.*

* If you want to search for sentences that contain nothing other than the specified words, use double quotes, a caret, and a dollar sign in combination: *"^i love you$"* will find *I love you.* and *I love you!* but not *I love you more than you love me.* (However, it will find *I loved you.* To prevent this match, use *"^i =love you$"*.)

* The strict order operator (<<) between two words will find sentences where the first word occurs before the second but not where the second word comes before the first. Thus _dog << cat_ will find examples where _dog_ precedes _cat_, but not vice versa.

* The proximity operator(~_N_, where _N_ is a positive number) following a phrase will limit the number of words that can separate the specified words to fewer than _N_. Thus _"you are *ble"~1_ will find *You are irresistible.* but not *You are partially responsible.*
 
See the [Manticore documentation](https://docs.manticoresearch.com/latest/html/) for other functionality. Note that the documentation mentions keywords pertaining to specific fields in a document, but these are not relevant to Tatoeba.

version at: 13/12/2019, 05:05

#How to Search for Text

Return to [tatoeba.org](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/advanced_search).


## Important Notes

The search engine on tatoeba.org (Manticore, previously Sphinx) doesn't work like other standard search engines.

You can't use ? or ! in your searches in the way you would normally expect to use them, so you need to search for sentences without using these punctuation marks.

Also, if you are searching for sentences in a language (such as Japanese or Chinese) that does not put spaces between words, be sure to see the section [Languages without word boundaries](https://en.wiki.tatoeba.org/articles/show/text-search#languages-without-word-boundaries) below.

## Tatoeba.org uses [Manticore Search](http://manticoresearch.com/) 

These instructions tell you how to use the search bar at the top of every Tatoeba page. Our search works much like a search engine such as Google, but has some important differences. 

* To find English sentences with "live", "lives", "living" or "lived", search for the word "live". (This will also find sentences with "Live", "Living", etc., since capitalization is ignored.)

  * [live](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=live+&from=eng&to=und)

* To match a word exactly (ignoring capitalization), put an equals sign (=) before it. 

  * [=live](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%3Dlive+&from=eng&to=und)

* Leave punctuation out of your search string. Most punctuation will be ignored, but a final exclamation mark (!) or question mark (?) will actually interfere with the search. These symbols have other purposes, as described later on this page.
  * The following yields no results:

      * [how strange!](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=how+strange!&from=eng&to=und)

  * but this search will find *How strange!* among other results:

      * [how strange](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=how+strange&from=eng&to=und)

* Put a $ after a word to find sentences ending with that word. The example finds English sentences ending with "Tom".

  * [Tom$](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=Tom%24&from=eng&to=und)

* Most punctuation symbols cannot be found via a search. However, $ and _ are special. You can search for sentences containing either of these characters by putting a backslash before the symbol.

  * [\$](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%5C%24&from=und&to=und)

* Put a ^ before a word to find sentences beginning with that word. The example finds English sentences beginning with "Tom".

  * [^Tom](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%5ETom&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences beginning with "Tom" and ending with "Mary".

  * [^Tom Mary$](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%5ETom+Mary%24&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences beginning with either "Tom" or "He".

  * [(^Tom|^He)](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%28%5ETom%7C%5EHe%29&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences including any of the following words: fasting, fasted, or fasts.  Using the equals sign means you'll get exact matches, thus you will avoid the adjective forms: fast, faster and fastest.

  * [(=fasting|=fasted|=fasts)](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%28%3Dfasting%7C%3Dfasted%7C%3Dfasts%29&from=eng&to=und)

* To search for a phrase, put quotes (") around it. Put an equals sign in front of each word that you want to be matched exactly. Or put an equals sign directly before the quotes to match every word in the quotes.
  * If you want to see phrases like "live in Boston", "living in Boston", or "lives in Boston", use the following search:

      * ["live in boston"](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22live+in+boston%22&from=eng&to=und)

  * The following searches will only find sentences with the exact phrase "live in Boston".

      * ["=live =in =boston"](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22%3Dlive+%3Din+%3Dboston%22&from=eng&to=und)
      * [="live in boston"](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%3D%22live+in+boston%22&from=eng&to=und)

  * This search will only find sentences consisting of the exact words "I live in Boston", without any additional words.

      * ["^I =live =in =Boston$"](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22%5EI+%3Dlive+%3Din+%3DBoston%24%22&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have "Tom", but don't begin with "Tom."

  * [-^Tom Tom](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=-%5ETom+Tom&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have "Tom", but don't begin or end with "Tom."

  * [-^Tom Tom -Tom$](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=-%5ETom+Tom+-Tom%24&from=eng&to=und)

* The question mark (?) as part of a word is a one-letter wildcard.

    * The following will find sentences with either "whenever" and "wherever."

        * [whe?ever](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=whe%3Fever&from=und&to=und)

    * The following will find sentences with with 6-letter words that have 2 letters, and then "eve" and then one more letter,  such as "clever" "eleven", "peeves", "uneven", ...

        * [??eve?](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%3F%3Feve%3F&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have "Tom", then 2 words, then "Mary", then 1 word, and then "John."

  * ["Tom * * Mary * John"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22Tom+*+*+Mary+*+John%22&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that start with "Tom", then 3 words, then ends with "Mary".

  * ["^Tom * * * Mary$"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22%5ETom+*+*+*+Mary%24%22&from=und&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have words beginning with "red", including the word "red".  (3 letters or more are required.)

  * [red*](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=red*&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have words ending with "red", including the word "red".

  * [*red](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=*red&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have words containing the word "red", including the word "red".

  * [\*red\*](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=*red*&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds English sentences that have the word "French", but don't have the word "Tom"

  * [French -Tom](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=French+-Tom&from=eng&to=und)

* This example will find sentences with "cheek" (in any form: cheeks, etc.) that don't include any of the words preceded by a minus sign (-).

  * [cheek -tear -slap -burn -red -hollow](http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=cheek+-tear+-slap+-burn+-red+-hollow&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds sentences in which the word "cat" comes before the word "dog."

  * [cat << dog](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=cat+%3C%3C+dog&from=eng&to=und)

* This example finds sentences that contain at least two of the words "cat", "dog", and "fish" (a "quorum search").

  * ["cat dog fish"/2](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=%22cat+dog+fish%22/2&from=eng&to=und)


### How to limit sentences to "I can" without getting "I can't".

* This shows just sentences beginning with "I can't."

  * ["^I =can't"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?from=eng&to=und&has_audio=yes&sort=created&query=%22%5EI+%3Dcan%27t%22)

* However, this search shows both the "I can" and "I can't" sentences.

  * ["^I =can"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?from=eng&to=und&has_audio=yes&sort=created&query=%22%5EI+%3Dcan%22)

* To just get "I can" sentences, without the "I can't" sentences, use this search. (Note that the quotes are necessary.)

  * ["^I =can" -"can't"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?from=eng&to=und&has_audio=yes&sort=created&query=%22%5EI+%3Dcan%22+-"can%27t")


### How do I search for "of" followed by words ending in "ing" without any intervening words?

 * [of NEAR/1 *ing -"*ing of"](https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/search?query=of+NEAR%2F1+*ing+-%22*ing+of%22&from=eng&to=none&user=&orphans=no&unapproved=no&has_audio=&tags=&list=&native=&trans_filter=limit&trans_to=und&trans_link=&trans_user=&trans_orphan=&trans_unapproved=&trans_has_audio=&sort=words&sort_reverse=)  Use the advanced search, sorting by "fewest words." 

 * Notes
   * The above link works correctly, but there is a bug in the wiki that makes it so the asterisks are not properly displayed in the above link, so you need to put an asterisk before both of the "ing" strings.  *ing
   * the -"ing of" part is necessary to avoid getting the -ing word before "of."
   * the "sort by fewest words" option is necessary to avoid search results that favor sentences that contain multiple occurrences of *ing,

## Using the "Advanced Search" to Find Sentences to Translate

You can find several different ways to do this on the following page.

[Create a Dashboard of Customized Links for Tatoeba.org](http://study.aitech.ac.jp/tatoeba/translate/links.php)

This page has a number of pre-set searches that you can use.
If you like this page, bookmark it for future use.


## Languages without word boundaries

For languages that don't use space characters to separate words, like Japanese, Chinese etc. the search engine interprets each character as a single word. For instance, searching for 逆に will return the same results as 逆 に, which actually matches sentences that only *include* these characters, but not necessarily in that particular order, or not contiguously. So you want to surround keywords with quotes: ["逆に"](http://tatoeba.org/jpn/sentences/search?query=%22%E9%80%86%E3%81%AB%22&from=jpn).


## More details

The search ignores capitalization and punctuation (unless the punctuation happens to match one of the special characters described elsewhere on the page). 

In some languages, including English, the search engine **stems** the search words by default. This means that it removes certain trailing sequences from both search words and indexed words. Thus a search for *live* will also find *lived* and *living*.

The languages in which the search engine stems words are: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

If you want to find an exact match for a word, you must precede it with an equals sign, as in *=live*. This may come as a surprise to users who are accustomed to Google Search, where wrapping a word or phrase in double quotes forces an exact match. In Manticore, double quotes have a different function, which only affects multiword (phrase) searches: wrapping a phrase in double quotes requires matching sentences to contain words in the specified continuous sequence. Simply placing a phrase in quotes does not suppress stemming of its individual words. To do that, you will need to place an equals sign before each word in the phrase for which you want to suppress stemming, or directly before the first quotation mark to suppress stemming for each word. If you want to put both an equals sign and a caret before the same word, the equals sign should precede the caret. For instance, to find sentences that begin with the exact word *Noise*, search for *=^noise*, not *^=noise*.

As an example, take the search *like thing*. This will find *like things*, *likely things*, and even *things like*. Adding quotes, as in *"like thing"*, will prevent a match against *things like* (where the words appear in the wrong order), but it will continue to match *like things*, *likely things*, and so on. By contrast, *"=like =thing"* will only match *like thing* (which does not occur in the Tatoeba corpus). Removing the double quotes, *=like =thing*, will match *What made you do a silly thing like that?* Removing one of the equals signs, as in *like =thing*, will find *Such a strange thing is not likely to happen.* 

Note that a star (*) can be placed at the beginning and/or end of a string representing a word, but it if is placed in the middle, the search will always fail. Also, a string beginning and/or ending with a star must be at least three characters long.


## Other search operators

* A vertical bar (representing "or") finds examples where either of the words appears:
  *    *hate | detest* will match sentences with either *hate* or *detest* (or both). 

* If you want to combine an or-expression with other terms, you need to put the or-expression in parentheses: 
  *    *(red|blue) house* will match sentences in which the word "house" appears together with either "red" or "blue" (or both) 

* A dash (or exclamation point) before a word prevents matches with sentences where the word appears: *like -thing* (or *like !thing*) will match *I like ice cream* but not *I like that red thing*.

* Putting a caret (^) before a word will match only sentences that begin with that word: *^great* will match *Great people are not always wise.* but not *You are the great love of my life.*

* Putting a dollar sign ($) after a word will match only sentences that end with that word: *life$* will match *This is the best day of my life.* but not *Life means nothing without friends.*

* If you want to search for sentences that contain nothing other than the specified words, use double quotes, a caret, and a dollar sign in combination: *"^i love you$"* will find *I love you.* and *I love you!* but not *I love you more than you love me.* (However, it will find *I loved you.* To prevent this match, use *"^i =love you$"*.)

* The strict order operator (<<) between two words will find sentences where the first word occurs before the second but not where the second word comes before the first. Thus _dog << cat_ will find examples where _dog_ precedes _cat_, but not vice versa.

* The proximity operator(~_N_, where _N_ is a positive number) following a phrase will limit the number of words that can separate the specified words to fewer than _N_. Thus _"you are *ble"~1_ will find *You are irresistible.* but not *You are partially responsible.*
 
See the [Manticore documentation](https://docs.manticoresearch.com/latest/html/) for other functionality. Note that the documentation mentions keywords pertaining to specific fields in a document, but these are not relevant to Tatoeba.

Note

The lines in green are the lines that have been added in the new version. The lines in red are those that have been removed.