It is only now - as we are able, for the first time, to house a book inside something more resilient and more expansive than paper - that we may take full advantage of employing both methods at the same time, thereby allowing readers to truly understand the original text.
- Daniel (Creator)
About Tailored Texts
Tailored Texts is a free, collaborative project with the aim of fostering the creation and sharing of personalised, context-based definitions, footnotes and annotations for the thousands of public domain e-books available online.
Since the advent of the internet, free dictionaries, automatic translators and specialist language sites have transformed language learning and hence the facility with which one can read literature in a foreign language. Definitions are available, freely, quicker and in many new forms. Nonetheless, it is still the case that most on-line dictionaries (like their off-line equivalents) still only provide a long list of words - most of the time without sufficient context. That is the nature of a dictionary - designed to serve all contexts, rather than a specific text: the definition on offer is not tailored to the text.* Conversely, the other great tool used to help the reading of foreign literature - full translations (on-line or off-line) - offer just one specific translation at a time where, as any linguist knows, many may well exist.
Therefore, when using support materials to read literature we either have to trawl through large entries to find a translation that applies or, alternatively, we are provided with just one solution.
At Tailored Texts, our mission is show that a third way is now possible. With our notes tool, we aim to build up a bank of multiple translations of any given word or phrase in their specific context - a work of literature - as well as the justifications for each choice. Traditional and modern support materials will be provided to help. What's more, there will be space to analyse anything of grammatical interest and a place to write more general comments on the literature and author themselves. These notes can be written in any language.
In other words, individuals reading the same book - who might otherwise, all alone, write notes on paper margins or underline unknown words to be relegated at a later stage to note pad - can now collaborate with other linguists when translating vocabulary or writing notes. This can only lead to a better comprehension of the text whilst the process of note-adding itself will prove to be hugely rewarding discipline for any linguist who reads to learn.
Welcome to Tailored Texts!
* The most notable exception is, of course, Wordreference.com, a marvellous site whose well-populated forums provide have allowed for more context and discussion of the language.