Apps available at NLRC
This section provides an overview of the apps available at Nepali Language Resource Center. The overview includes a brief introduction of the apps, the measures that have been taken to ensure the quality of the data that powers the apps, and the measures that have been put in place to provide a continuous improvement of the apps. For other resources, please visit our homepage.
ContentsIntroduction
The wider support for Unicode has provided an opportunity to effectively promote the Nepali language in the digital medium. NLRC provides various resources and applications to make Nepali easier to learn and use.
At the heart of the NLRC website, nepalilanguage.org, are the widely used online applications providing various online tools to make Nepali easier to learn and use. The backend of these applications have matured over the years with high quality data and a comprehensive proofreading engine, which incorporates the grammar guidelines published by Nepal Academy.
Apps
- Nepali Spell Checker: Nepali Spell Checker makes it easy to spell-check in Nepali by providing relevant and accurate suggestions. Potential misspelled words that are not found in the dictionary are presented with relevant suggestions (powered by a comprehensive set of Nepali words and phrases.)
- Nepali Spell Checker for Microsoft Word
- Nepali Spell Checker for Google Docs
- Type in Nepali: Type in Nepali makes it easy to type in Nepali by providing relevant suggestions as you type each letter. It also includes Nepali Spell Checker. As you type, relevant auto-suggestions (powered by a comprehensive set of Nepali words and phrases) are presented, which you can choose to complete the word or phrase.
Type in Nepali allows users to type directly in Nepali using a Latin (English/QWERTY) keyboard. The input method editor (IME) within Type in Nepali converts keystrokes to Nepali characters.
There is no need to install any software on your computer. This provides an easy and consistent way to type in Nepali from any computer. Type in Nepali also provides a fast and easy way to switch between Nepali and English.
Quality of data
The following steps have been taken to ensure the quality of data utilized by the apps.
All entries have been manually verified against the official Nepali dictionary, Nepali Brihat Shabdakosh, published by Nepal Academy (Nepal Pragya-Pratishthan.) The first edition of Nepali Brihat Shabdakosh published in 1983 was used until 2010. From the beginning of 2011, the seventh edition of Nepali Brihat Shabdakosh published in 2010 has been used.
Entries that may not be present in Nepali Brihat Shabdakosh (e.g., proper nouns, inflections, derived words, compound words, phrases, new words, etc.) conform to Nepali grammar rules.
Continuous improvement
User experience improvement
Our product managers keep in touch with our user community to understand the community needs. Enhancement requests for new features or functionality received from our user community are given a priority when deciding the roadmap for the apps. To the extent possible, we try to incorporate such enhancement requests in newer versions of the apps.
Our user base is diverse both demographically and geographically. We have been continuously working to provide a rich user experience to our users. Some of the efforts include improving the latency aspects as the apps are accessed from all over the world, improving the scalability of the apps as the user base continues to grow steadily, and refactoring the code to make the apps more robust.
Data quality improvement
One of the aspects we take a great pride in, and one of the reasons our user community trusts the apps offered by NLRC, is the data quality of our apps. The Nepali language, like any other languages, has been evolving over time. In addition, the use of the language has increased in the digital age, especially among the youth, who can, unlike as late as the early 2000s, now use Nepali directly on the medium of their choice from the Web to smartphones. With the wider adoption and the evolution of the language, various opinions, sometimes conflicting, have come on how the language should evolve. On issues like orthography, pronunciation and grammar, there have been conflicting arguments. In order not to promote one argument over the other and to make the resources provided by NLRC all sides can trust, we strictly follow the guidelines published by Nepal Academy.
This strict following of the Nepal Academy ensures that we are transparent on the measures we take to improve the data quality of our apps and that our users can be confident that resources we offer conform to the authoritative institution of Nepal responsible for setting standards and giving direction to the Nepali language.
One of the primary documents from Nepal Academy we rely on is the official Nepali dictionary. All the entries in the database our apps use, e.g., the data that powers the Nepali Spell Checker, have been manually verified against the official Nepali dictionary. When it comes to data entry, not all information get the same priority. To make data more relevant, and, most importantly, to ensure that the data our users are more likely to use gets priority, we ensure that the most relevant data gets entered first. NLRC has developed an algorithm to identify words and phrases that are most frequently used in Nepali and keeps a list of such words and phrases in descending order of relevancy. The algorithm tracks common Nepali words and phrases over time and the list is updated on a regular basis. The data entry is done by editors who have a thorough understanding of the Nepali language. During data entry, the editors start from the top of the list to ensure that the most relevant data gets entered first.
It is not uncommon, at times, that we receive comments about the orthographic soundness of the information our apps may provide. In most cases, such comments are a result of the change that has been made to the Nepal Academy documents or guidelines. For example, in more recent versions of the official Nepali dictionary, Nepal Academy has changed the orthographic form for a number of words, which meant that older forms of the words were removed and newer forms added. Our apps flag such removed words, which are no longer in the dictionary, as either incorrect forms or deprecated forms.
We are happy that Nepal Academy has been bringing Nepali language experts together to work out their differences and come up with common guidelines agreeable to all parties. The 2011 Nepali Language Conference organized by the Academy is such an example. We are glad that, in the conference, the experts have been able to come to an agreement on many conflicting opinions and that the decisions of the conference have been adopted by the Academy. We are constantly updating our data to conform to such guidelines adopted by the Academy. We look forward to implementing any future guidelines from the Academy to improve the data quality of our apps, so that our users can continue to trust the resources we provide.
Contribute
Our user community, that has found the apps useful, has provided valuable feedback by providing suggestions, submitting enhancement requests for new features and reporting bugs. The feedback from our user community has played an important role in prioritizing the development of new features and making the apps more robust and useful.
Please provide any feedback or suggestions for improvement, including bug reports, by visiting the
Contact us page. Thank you.