From twext

[edit] Trifocal

How complicted would it be to change the CSS to support trifocal text? I'm thinking tri-lingual or rather two languages plus the roots for one

 I  to be  to think
 I  am     thinking
 Yo estoy  pensando

The 3-rd row would contain the roots, as one would search them in the dictionary. Maybe with some color-code and indices to show grammatical form (case, tense, gender, number, et cetera)

Or does "baby steps" mean "NO" in http://twext.cc/go/basic/xml#multilingual_in_single_file.3F ? :) -- Dantesoft 03:22, 18 July 2007 (PDT)

"trifocal" meaning three focal planes? can you illustrate an example? afaics trifocal output probably not a big priority right now.. the purpose of twext, especially at this baby-step stage, is more to provide simple comprehensible input, less to get into grammar rules.. later, color usage could be very useful, but first things first.. =) Duke

Example @ http://upload.larskleinschmidt.de/c9d9

file doesn't exist..  :/.. i'm eager to see it :) please feel free to upload the file here: http://twext.cc/go/Special:Upload (you'll probably need to create an account) meanwhile here's an old attempt at color coding word order in twext:
..

color coding could toggle on/off and may be acheived with marked up twext

Well I though a 1 week expiration date will be enough for you to check out ;) I uploaded it as

(I have the HTML/CSS but can't upload it)

What you'll notice as you read the text is that learning nouns is easier as you automatically get additional information about the word's function via its color. One can skip unknown adjectives and still get the message, and feel better about skipping, simply because they decoded the grammatical form. Similar to your formatting, which is slowing me down while parsing the text because of the excess of color.

maybe the colored twext could be 50% color density.. twext is colored in old example above to deal with variable word order within chunks.. chunk translation allows for single words or groups of words (chunks of meaning) to get twext.. word order reversal ie "old dog" reversed to "perro viejo" can be communicated w/ color (at some human parsing cost).. benefit is communicating variable word order within chunks..

The text is colored by part of speech (nouns red, adjectives bright red, etc) -- this should make it easier to decode the meaning. The twext under holds the word(s) root, to discriminate cases, gender, number, etc. The twext over holds the word's gloss.

recently got good tip from tprs teacher (carol gaab) to look for verb roots before decoding tense (helpful to guess meaning).. seems viable, color codifiable

If I understand correctly, you mean showing "Yo [red]habl[/red]o". Well it might work for some Indo-European languages, but what about the mountain of irregular verbs, where the root is not part of most of the conjugated forms? See bellow my comment on trifocal.

you're right.. probably irregulars are a problem.. * QUERer * QUiero* QUisieria.. overall explicit grammar focus serves advanced students and linguists more than beginners, intermediates.. beginners, intermediates need massive comprehensible input in context they can relate to: meaningful input

The focus would not be on the grammar at all, but rather to help with the comprehensible input.

10-4.. research proves comprehensible input is key.. grammar is useful for advanced students and linguists..

[edit] triple twext

"trifocal" might be confusing because it suggests three focal planes.. the point of twext is bifocal formatting to stress target text while providing supportive twext on separate focal plane.. to achieve bifocal, very light density is key.. so maybe triple text can provide gloss and grammar info or phonetic pronunciation.. subtle color variation may between 2nd/3rd twexts may be useful..

I uploaded it as

thanks for your patience (i was away for 2 weeks=) and thanks for taking time to visualize and share future forms of twext.. very much appreciated.. triple twext doable with marked up twext.. triple twext can be useful as you show it.. translation info might wanna be consistent (placed consistently above or below target text).. triple twext likely to be required with variable writing systems: i just took a little mandarin class.. triple twext including phonetic pronunciation and translation could be useful to get familiar with new ways of writing new language..