Towards a Specialized Search Engine for Language Learners [Point of View]

The internet serves a paradoxical role in language learning. Providing a fertile ground for neologisms and redefinitions, the web incubates a growing translation gap between one´s native tongue and his or her target foreign language. However, the internet can also be used to bridge languages even as they change, because it contains a vast and ever expanding set of human-translated web pages. In this paper, we propose that search engines that mine high-quality human translations can unlock the Web´s pedagogical potential, and form the basis for next-generation language learning tools. We introduce Engkoo, an English learning search engine for Chinese speakers, to demonstrate the effectiveness of this concept in practice.