Notice

This page show a previous version of the article

Using the Tatoeba Corpus for Your Own Projects

Due to the nature of a public collaborative project, this data will never be 100% free of errors.
Be aware of the following.
- We allow non-native speakers to contribute in languages they are learning.
- We ask our members not to change archaic language to something that currently sounds natural.
- We allow our members to submit book titles and other things you might not consider sentences.
Translations may not always be accurate, even though the linked sentences are correct sentences.

Don't use the whole corpus, but do some filtering out of obviously suspect items. (Things like items tagged @need native check, @change, archaic, non-sentence, etc. Browse Tags to find others.)
You may want to eliminate all sentences not "owned" by native speakers. However, even this will not guarantee perfect data. (See Tatoeba.org Native Speakers maintained by CK)
You should inform your audience that the data may contain errors (See an example) and explain what steps you have taken to help minimize the errors.
Since corrections are being made all the time, you should frequently update your project so your audience benefits from these corrections.
You might want to only use sentences you have personally proofread if you are creating materials for people studying a foreign language. This helps make sure that what you are teaching people isn't a mistake.