13

I'm setting up flash cards with the word in the L2, and an image of the object, as suggested in "Fluent Forever". The book suggests doing the search in the L2:

If you’re actually learning a word like chien, rather than a more complex sentence, I strongly suggest you search in French. You’ll almost always find some differences between your expectations and what you actually see. These differences make the image search process a lot more interesting, and as a result, the word becomes a lot more interesting. In the case of chien (dog), the differences are pretty subtle, but they’re there. Chiens are cuter, are more often puppies or silly looking lap-dogs, and don’t tend to be photographed with their owners. Sure you could use chien to refer to Lassie, but generally, chiens are little foofy French dogs.

However, when I search for words, sometimes I get hits of a word, often unrelated, spelt the same way in another language. For example, searching for "гол", which is river in Mongolian, gets a lot of hits in Russian and Ukrainian for their translation of the sporting term "goal".

How can I do an image search for a given word for languages with a weak internet presence?

I've tried using a country-specific search engine site (google.mn rather than google.com), and it's helped somewhat, but isn't foolproof.

The Fluent Forever website suggests using English as a fallback, but I want to know if there's any hacks that can help further.

2
  • @bytebuster updated question in response. Jul 31, 2016 at 1:35
  • 1
    I absolutely agree your motivation, it is very clear. Still I believe that for the purpose of flash cards, this may be a bit of over-perfection. Keep in mind that flash-cards is a tool for associative memory, which memory is inaccurate by its nature. Personally. I would totally tolerate some minor inaccuracies, like having a mature dog on the picture instead of chien. :-) Jul 31, 2016 at 3:11

3 Answers 3

7

There are several ways to accomplish that:

  1. Bing has language: search filter. This screenshot is pretty much self-evident:

    Bing search for гол

  2. Google: After the search, click "Search tools" and then choose to filter your language.
    Caveat: Only your browser's primary language can be chosen, shame on Google.

  3. Google's Advanced Search has a drop-down for language selection.
    Caveat: Mongolian isn't there, shame on Google.
  4. Google's Search also accepts lr parameter like this:
    https://www.google.com/search?as_q=гол&lr=lang_be
    But again, Mingolian isn't there, note I've chosen Bielorussian here.

Further reading:

6

For a few languages (sadly, not Mongolian), you can tell Google Image search to search results in your target language (note that English is always included):

Click on the Settings gear icon in the top right corner, then Languages. From that page, click 'Edit' under Currently showing search results in:. You'll see a list of languages you can choose.

3

If your language is associated with a particular country, try adding a search restriction for images only from that specific country.

google.mn гол versus google.mn гол site:.mn

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.