The Base lexicale du français (BLF): a multifunctional online database for learners of French Serge Verlinde Thierry Selva Jean Binon K.U.Leuven, Modern language institute Groupe de recherche en lexicographie pédagogique (GRELEP)

Pedagogical lexicography: English and French For English, since ‘95: LDOCE, LEA, LLA (Longman) OALD, OCD (Oxford) Cobuild (Collins Cobuild) CIDE (Cambridge) MED (Macmillan) … For English, since ‘95: LDOCE, LEA, LLA (Longman) OALD, OCD (Oxford) Cobuild (Collins Cobuild) CIDE (Cambridge) MED (Macmillan) … For French Dico du fr. fondamental (Gougenheim, ‘58) Dico du vocabulaire essentiel (Matoré, ‘70) Dico Larousse du fr. langue étrangère (Dubois, ‘77-‘79) Dico du français (Rey-Debove, ‘99) (Dico du fr. usuel (Picoche et Rolland, 2002)) For French Dico du fr. fondamental (Gougenheim, ‘58) Dico du vocabulaire essentiel (Matoré, ‘70) Dico Larousse du fr. langue étrangère (Dubois, ‘77-‘79) Dico du français (Rey-Debove, ‘99) (Dico du fr. usuel (Picoche et Rolland, 2002))

The BLF: an online learning environment for French general French Business French lexical db corpus exercises dictionary MySQL database PHP-scripts ‘user-sensitive lexicography’: 6 different interfaces 1 exercise generator learner

Why 6 different interfaces? 1.I want info on a French word 2.I only know a Dutch/English word, but not the French equivalent 3.I prefer to discover the info step by step 4.How do you express intensification? Which verbs take the preposition à before the infinitive? 5.I don’t like searching in dictionaries 6.How do you say ‘very bad’ conditions? I don’t find it in the dictionary…

The BLF: monolingual dictionary (1) – word combinations LDOCE 2003/2005BLF

The BLF: monolingual dictionary (2) – thesaurus > semantic networks Cobuild 2003 BLF (player 1: joueur)

The BLF: bilingual dictionary – translations Robert&Collins 2004 (build – invest)BLF

The BLF: database dictionary BLFTLFi

The BLF: dictionary ‘+’ reading assistant consultation of a dictionary = a steeple chase consultation of a dictionary = a steeple chase –sache > savoir –pose … question > poser? question? poser une question? –en tout cas > en? tout? cas? en tout cas? BLF

The BLF: dictionary ‘+’ writing assistant Cf. Adam Kilgarriff: WordSketches Peter Blumenthal: profils combinatoires Cf. Adam Kilgarriff: WordSketches Peter Blumenthal: profils combinatoires profiles for words profiles for words comparison of profiles for x pairs of words comparison of profiles for x pairs of words BLF

The BLF: exercise generator Online learning environment (Alfalex) - exercises automatically generated Dafles + corpus = Alfalex Online learning environment (Alfalex) - exercises automatically generated Dafles + corpus = Alfalexcontextual on various features (word combin., semantics!) - help function - database with answers - balanced correction - feed-back - automated tutor BLF

The BLF: the future complete the lexicographic description mainly: syntactic patterns, examples, translation complete the lexicographic description mainly: syntactic patterns, examples, translation improve the reading and writing assistant improve the reading and writing assistant generate a mixed frequency list: single words and multiword units generate a mixed frequency list: single words and multiword units