The SMARTool is a free web resource for L2 learners of Czech that implements
findings of a learning simulation experiment and corpus research to optimize
the acquisition of Czech vocabulary and morphology. Corpus data
(Schöne 2015)
reveals that for any given Czech noun, only a few (usually 2-3) wordforms
account for nearly all attestations, while remaining wordforms are rare or
unattested. Pilot study has shown that the most frequent grammatical case
for most words was the genitive and and in a larger random sample accusative.
It can be concluded that the nominative is not a priori a typical case.
Other computational learning experiment conducted on the Russian language
(Janda & Tyers 2018)
shows that learning of Russian inflection is best when training is restricted
to high frequency wordforms. The SMARTool builds on these findings for a basic
vocabulary of nouns, adjectives, and verbs culled from a corpus and other sources
to represent levels A1, A2, B1, and B2 (CEFR scale). In the current version,
there are available date for A1 level. We have identified both a) the three most
frequent wordforms for each lexeme (reducing the target number of wordforms to learn
from 50,000 to 3,000) and b) the most typical grammatical constructions and collocations
that motivate each wordform. We have also created c) corpus-based example sentences
instantiating typical use.
Audio for all sentences and English
translations are available at the click of a button. The SMARTool has filters
that facilitate searching by: a) CEFR Level, b) Topic (such as čas/time,
stravování/food, zdraví/health etc.), c) Analysis (such as Ins.Sing, facilitating
grammatical exercises), and d) Dictionary form.
Schöne, K. 2015. Zkoumání hierarchizace pádů českého substantiva v sémantických
(kolokačních) třídách. (Dissertation thesis, Univerzita Karlova, Praha). Retrieved
from
https://is.cuni.cz/webapps/zzp/detail/104275
Janda, Laura A. & Francis M. Tyers. 2018. Less is More: Why All Paradigms are
Defective, and Why that is a Good Thing. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic
Theory 14(2), 33pp.
doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2018-0031.
Czech team behind this project
- Adrian Jan Zasina (CNC, Charles University): Czech Concept, Design, Vocabulary selection, Editing of content
- Václav Cvrček (CNC, Charles University): Czech Concept, Design
- Michal Láznička (Department of Linguistics, Charles University): Application for patients with aphasia
Team behind this project
- Radovan Bast (UiT The Arctic University of Norway): Design and Programming
- Laura A. Janda (UiT The Arctic University of Norway):
Background research, Concept, Design, Vocabulary selection, Editing of content
- Tore Nesset (UiT The Arctic University of Norway): Concept, Design, Vocabulary selection
- Svetlana Sokolova (UiT The Arctic University of Norway): Concept, Design, Vocabulary selection
- James McDonald (UiT The Arctic University of Norway): Editing of content
- Mikhail Kopotev (University of Helsinki): Design, Vocabulary selection
- Francis M. Tyers (Indiana University): Background research, Concept, Design, Vocabulary selection
- Ekaterina Rakhilina (Higher School of Economics in Moscow): Concept
- Olga Lyashevskaya (Higher School of Economics in Moscow): Concept, Design, Vocabulary selection
- Valentina Zhukova (Higher School of Economics in Moscow): Content
- Evgeniia Sudarikova (Higher School of Economics in Moscow): Content
- Lisa Kibisova (Higher School of Economics in Moscow): Content
