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Introduction to Linking

The Tatoeba corpus is stored as a set of sentences and a set of links between them. Whenever a sentence is translated, a link is automatically created between the source and the translation. Sometimes, however, a translation already exists in the corpus. In this case, the ideal thing to do is to link to that translation. If you are an advanced contributor, you can do this yourself. If you are not, please ask an advanced contributor to do it for you.

For advanced contributors, chain and scissor icons are displayed in the interface. Clicking on the chain icon links a pair of sentences, and clicking on the scissors icon unlinks it. However, this is only possible for indirect translations (a pair of sentences connected by an end-to-end series of direct translations). If a sentence is a valid translation for a newer sentence, but there is no series of direct translations connecting them (i.e., they are "unconnected sentences"), you must go beyond the standard Tatoeba interface to link them.

Use a User Script to Link Unconnected Sentences

One recommended way to link unconnected sentences is to install and use the Tatoeba Visual Linker user script. See the user script page for a description of this script and a mention of the add-on (such as Greasemonkey or Tampermonkey) that your browser requires in order to run the script.

Use a Bookmarklet to Link Unconnected Sentences

Another recommended way to link unconnected sentences is to install a bookmarklet on your bookmarks toolbar and then use it. This works for all browsers without the need to install a separate add-on. The Bookmarklets page gives instructions for installation, and the Sample Workflow Using a Bookmarklet to Link page presents a sample workflow for using the bookmarklet to link unconnected sentences.

Manually Type a URL to Link Unconnected Sentences

Finally, two sentences can be linked by manually typing a URL in the address bar of the browser (namely, "http://tatoeba.org/eng/links/add/"+first_sentence_id+"/"+last_sentence_id). However, this is error-prone and laborious.

Discourage Duplicating as an Alternative to Linking

An alternative to linking to an existing sentence is to create a duplicate version of the sentence and wait for the periodically executed deduplication script to unify the sentences. This is discouraged, however, especially since the deduplication script needs to be rewritten (expected completion date: mid-August 2014). Regular contributors are encouraged to leave comments asking advanced contributors to create links, rather than to create duplicate sentences.