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AFAIK, an ex-Googler had that very same itch and he founded http://www.linguee.com to try to solve it.
I think it draws heavily from the huge corpus of professionally translated EU regulations and documents.
Something like [1] is pretty much state-of-the-art. It's worth noting that the kind of writing you are doing change the probability significantly. [2] shows this quite well.
[1] https://colinmorris.github.io/lm-sentences/#/billion_words
[2] https://colinmorris.github.io/lm-sentences/#/brown_romance
I wonder if there is a tool like this: 1. You enter a sentence 2. It gives out 5 different ways to say the exact same thing. Such a tool not only would help ESL people but also it would help native speakers find more relaxed or formal versions of a sentence.
We're building a tool that does something similar but for email. Currently we're targeting cold sales emails- the idea is, you enter a recipient's email and we aggregate data about them and surface relevant, personable sentences that you can use in the email. You'll also be able to change the tone of these sentences (funny, professional, casual, etc.) Learn more: http://emailfox.co
If you can somehow get it through to your clients that they should only ever spam one target once, then hell, I'm for it.
AFAIK, an ex-Googler had that very same itch and he founded http://www.linguee.com to try to solve it.
I've found Linguee very useful for English -> French translation. I think it draws heavily from the huge corpus of professionally translated EU regulations and documents.
You might like to check out writeful: http://writefullapp.com/
I like to read such things because it makes me think about what is being said and how the language works. If we always use "popoular" patterns then our writing becomes cliched and boring and people's eyes will glide right over it.
Bah, if you have good reason to be confident that your sentence is correct even if English speakers might feel it is wrong, then I say you should just write it anyway. I like to read such things because it makes me think about what is being said and how the language works. If we always use "popoular" patterns then our writing becomes cliched and boring and people's eyes will glide right over it.
A big part of learning a language is to become familiar with frequent speech patterns and slang. A language is not a sterile set of words with attached grammar but a slippery gelatinous blob that molds itself to the culture and people. Spoken languages are quite lively. If I want to integrate myself and joke around with natives, I need to learn to mold it the same way as natives to. In order to learn how to do that, you first have to start imitating.
Bah, if you have good reason to be confident that your sentence is correct even if English speakers might feel it is wrong, then I say you should just write it anyway. I like to read such things because it makes me think about what is being said and how the language works. If we always use "popoular" patterns then our writing becomes cliched and boring and people's eyes will glide right over it.
You have a point. But as a non-native speaker trying to learn a language, you aim to become so fluent that people will not notice you're foreign. You want to be able to play with the language. A big part of learning a language is to become familiar with frequent speech patterns and slang. A language is not a sterile set of words with attached grammar but a slippery gelatinous blob that molds itself to the culture and…
Right now I live in Germany, and speak pretty ungramatically, but from being here I copy a lot of everyday idiom without really understanding it. So what I would like is the opposite of what you are looking for: confidence that my German sentences (especially written ones) are formally correct.
I don't mind if that makes me look like a well taught foreigner. Right now I sound like a badly taught foreigner.