Hi, I’m currently thinking on studying computational linguistics in Germany. The option that I like the most is Saarland’s program.

¿Have you studied there? ¿Could you please describe how you experience was and if you consider that option good too?

I also would like to know what kind of job opportunities are present in Saarland or near the university, in case I want to work or do some internships during my studies. I know there are more job options in bigger cities but I just want to know if Saarland still has some options thanks to the Artificial Intelligence Centre or others.

I’m deeply interested in NLP and maybe I’d like to work in that field, also, I’m interested in the bachelor’s degree, not in the master’s degree

Hey y’all - I applied for a masters in comp Ling at Georgetown for fall 2024- application due date was Jan 15, and I still haven’t heard back (as of April 8). Has anyone else heard back/ gotten in already?

Hey!

I am currently a second-year students in a somewhat computational linguistics program, and orienting myself in that direction for my masters.

Currently, the programs I am most interested in are Stuttgart, Tuebingen and Heidelberg as well, though I don't think I have enough CL credits for Heidelberg.

Obviously, Tuebingen is a very beautiful city and along with Heidelberg, the universities are highly ranked internationally and nationally, while Stuttgart scores significantly lower. However, they are both MA's, and thus seem to focus more on linguistics. I am interested in working in industry after. I am really interested in speech processing though, which would speak for stuttgart again.

Any advice/experience/input is appreciated!!

I have started my application for University of Arizonas masters program in Human Language Technology.

I have most things together, but I could realllllllly use some help with my statement of purpose. I have a very rough draft.

If you are willing to help, Id really appreciate it.

Also, if you have gone/go to UofA, how was/is your experience?!

Hi all. The aims of this post are:

(1) For me to find out if these two programmes are comparable and would produce the similar outcome. If not, how do they differ?

(2) For me to connect with past/current students in either of these programmes to gain more insights about it.

(3) What would I be able to do after graduating from either of these universities in the above programmes?

(4) How do I know what I need to know? Because upon reading course descriptions, I couldn’t tell which is which. Where do I find what a certain topic constitutes, for example? E.g.: If a module is named “Speech Processing”, what does it cover and not cover?

BACKGROUND

1. I hold a Bachelor of Arts degree in Linguistics (graduation: 2017).

2. I have no formal computational experience. I self studied Python on Coursera and acquired two certificates in the PY4E specialisation (2022).

3. I used to work to develop a virtual assistant but not as a computational linguist. I did localisation but also still had to work around the Terminal, run some provided scripts, amend the codes minimally (following the guidelines only) (2019). So I studied Python only after leaving the job above.

4. Now I wanted to become someone who specialises in developing things like virtual assistants, language model, etc. but I’m not sure what modules to look for to gain the necessary skills.

5. I often see job listings which look for computer scientists/computer engineers/AI specialists for things I want to do. So will I actually learn how to do language modelling, building the algorithm, develop language learning models?

6. I am planning to pursue an MSc, and have secured offers for both Manchester (unconditional) and Edinburgh (conditional: IELTS) but wonder which one is better for me.

ADDITIONAL INFO: Modules offered by

-- the University of Edinburgh—

CORE: Computer Programming for Speech and Language Processing | Accelerated Natural Language Processing | Speech Processing | Statistics and Quantitative Methods | Research Ethics Training in Linguistics and English Language

OPTION: NLU, Generation, MT | ASR | Speech Synthesis | ML in Signal Processing | Simulating Language | Phonetics and Laboratory Phonology | Speech Production & Perception | Working with Users

— University of Manchester —

CORE: Computational Linguistics 1 | Computational Linguistics 2 | Foundational Statistics | Corpus Linguistics | Research Methods in CCL 1 | Research Methods in CCL 2

I’m not sure what their option modules are (unavailable).

Hello everyone! I recently applied to the UW CLMS program and have been looking for admission stats to not worry as much but was wondering if anyone had insight on my chances coming from a comp sci bachelors focused on AI/ML and a linguistics minor where I focused mainly on phonology with a 3.5 GPA.

TIA!

Update: To those looking was denied without waitlist :(

Most models produce outputs per token. In NER or POS tagging, token-level outputs are mapped to the original target word using majority vote, mean, or maybe using a separator token. I can't find any research discussing these methods.

Any paper discussing them or why they chose a specific method over the other? or maybe other methods that I didn't mention?

Hello, after my Bachelor in Translation and Interpreting I chose, for my MA, to study computational linguistics, since I had enough course credits to enroll in this new MA program. The problem now is that I find myself having no background in mathematics and statistics whatsoever, and very low intermediate coding skills (if I need to build something I theoretically could do that and have done in the past, but I'm far from being competent, and every time I need to write code I need to ask chatGPT for the correct syntax, even though at least I usually kind of remember the underlying logic).

Now I've just started to study for my first CL exam, which includes a general introduction to most of the foundational concepts of computational linguistics (basics of statistics, Bayes' thorem, Markovian Models, basics of machine learning and deep learning), and a second part of this course which should delve more into specific computational linguistic analysis.

Honestly I'm quite confused by the amount of information presented, and even though I'm quite interested in learning more about this subject, as I've always hoped to find a way to combine my interest for linguistics and for coding and programming (which unfortunately I've never had the chance to work on), I would like to have some sort of roadmap of what is required to start working my way up into this subject. I would like to know what people with only a background in linguistics wished they knew, or needed to learn about first, before they began delving into computational linguistics.

Thank you guys in advance!

I am having some serious issues with nltk.download() method. Specifically, I am struggling with a SSL certificate problem (solutions posted in other treads don't seem to work, probably due to some interferences from pip) and .zip format handling.
Operating system: Sonoma 14.2.1. Ide: Pycharm. Interpreter: Pycharm/Projects/*Projectname*/.venv/bin/python (alternative: usr/local/bin/python3.12, but it doesn't matter which interpreter as same problems arise with both).
1- I have installed NLTK with pycharm in the virtualenv of the project. (Note: I also have NLTK downloaded also in the local library)
2- While working with the Python console, I can successfully import NLTK, as well as nltk.corpus. However, when it comes to nltk.download(*corpus*), it raises a well-known error (discussed in other threads, eg. SSL error downloading NLTK data):
[nltk_data] Error loading wordnet: <urlopen error [SSL:
[nltk_data] CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed:
[nltk_data] unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:1000)>False
3- I then attempt to resolve this issue by following the suggestions from Stack Overflow:
3.a) first method: Install Certificates.command, i.e. running run the following terminal command:
/Applications/Python/Install Certificates.command
or wherever the relevant Install Certificates.command is located. I have tried both, by command line and by clicking visually on the file, and this is the error raised in the terminal window automatically opened:
/Applications/Python\ 3.12/Install\ Certificates.command ; exit;
-- pip install --upgrade certifi
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/bin/python3.12: No module named pip
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 44, in <module>
File "<stdin>", line 24, in main
File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/lib/python3.12/subprocess.py", line 413, in check_call
raise CalledProcessError(retcode, cmd)
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/bin/python3.12', '-E', '-s', '-m', 'pip', 'install', '--upgrade', 'certifi']' returned non-zero exit status 1.
Saving session...
...copying shared history...
...saving history...truncating history files...
...completed.
No module named pip. How can I fix this? When I am installing python stuff, I use always the command pip3: is it possible that, being written pip instead of pip3 in the Install Certificate.command terminal script, it doesn't work?
3b) disabling SSL check with running
import nltk
import ssl
try:
_create_unverified_https_context = ssl._create_unverified_context
except AttributeError:
pass
else:
ssl._create_default_https_context = _create_unverified_https_context
nltk.download()
Actually it seems to work, and it automatically download a .zip file in a new directory /Users/*username***/nltk_data (thus, not in the virtual env). But if I try to do any kind of action with WordNet (the data downloaded), eg. the sample code:
import nltk
from nltk.corpus import wordnet as wn
wn.synset('dog')
it raises the error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Applications/PyCharm CE.app/Contents/plugins/python-ce/helpers/pydev/pydevconsole.py", line 364, in runcode
coro = func()
^^^^^^
File "<input>", line 1, in <module>
File "/Users/username/PycharmProjects/projectname/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/nltk/corpus/util.py", line 121, in __getattr__
self.__load()
File "/Users/username/PycharmProjects/projectname/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/nltk/corpus/util.py", line 81, in __load
root = nltk.data.find(f"{self.subdir}/{self.__name}")
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/Users/username/PycharmProjects/projectname/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/nltk/data.py", line 555, in find
return find(modified_name, paths)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/Users/username/PycharmProjects/projectname/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/nltk/data.py", line 542, in find
return ZipFilePathPointer(p, zipentry)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/Users/username/PycharmProjects/projectname/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/nltk/compat.py", line 41, in _decorator
return init_func(*args, **kwargs)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/Users/username/PycharmProjects/projectname/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/nltk/data.py", line 394, in __init__
zipfile = OpenOnDemandZipFile(os.path.abspath(zipfile))
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/Users/username/PycharmProjects/projectname/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/nltk/compat.py", line 41, in _decorator
return init_func(*args, **kwargs)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/Users/username/PycharmProjects/projectname/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/nltk/data.py", line 935, in __init__
zipfile.ZipFile.__init__(self, filename)
File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/lib/python3.12/zipfile/__init__.py", line 1341, in __init__
self._RealGetContents()
File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/lib/python3.12/zipfile/__init__.py", line 1408, in _RealGetContents
raise BadZipFile("File is not a zip file")
zipfile.BadZipFile: File is not a zip file
And I am stuck.
Final strange Pycharm behavior: the interpreter is Python 3.12, but if I try in the terminal the command line python --version --> Python 3.9.6, when python3 --version --> Python 3.12.2 . NOTE: I have never installed python 3.9 by my own, I think it is a pre-installed version on Mac (?).
Where do you think is the origin of the problem?
I would be very happy if someone could help me in making nltk properly work on Pycharm (I am very tired of coding on Google Colab).
Moreover,
How can I fix the "No module named pip" issue? (And thus, potentially, the Certificate Issue)?
Where need to be located the nltk_data directory (when I install nltk package, nltk_data directory is not built). And the Zip file?
Thank you very much in advance!

Hi everyone,

I've been thinking of Masters' programs in CL for a while now. In fact, I applied and got rejected for the Uni Stuttgart program last year cos my degree isn't a CS or Linguistics degree and I didn't get enough points. Thinking of applying again this year, after beefing up my application with a NLP certification from CMU.

Have been following different posts asking about programs but wanted a perspective on which programs have a strong emphasis on linguistic theory? Context is that my undergrad studies were in Business Management and Data Analytics, and I currently work as a Data Analyst so I have decent programming skills. I am cool with delving deeper into more ML / DL but I also feel like those concepts and skills can be easily picked up via self-learning / free online courses. On the other hand, my exposure to Linguistics has been very shallow, but I'm super interested to learn more about this side of things, especially from a computational/scientific perspective rather than from a humanities lens. Hence, I think a Masters in CL rather than Linguistics would be the right path.

I've been considering mainly options in EU (Stuttgart, Saarland, Copenhagen, Lorraine) due to costs, but am still open to hearing about UK/US schools (UW, Edinburgh) as I'm planning to apply for scholarships. Would love to hear from alumni/current students from CL programs:

1. What was the rough split between CS and Linguistics classes for your program? In terms of both time spent & rigour?
2. How much of research projects do you see incorporating / being based on linguistic theory?
3. What kind of jobs do graduates of this program go into? Especially international students who can't speak the native language (German/Dutch/French)
4. (Bonus if applies) If you didn't speak the language of the country you studied in, how was your experience like? Did you end up learning the language to converse in day-to-day context? Did you leave the country after the program or end up staying?

Would love to hear experiences from other schools not listed as well, but note that I'm not very interested in speech technology. Thanks!!

I am a current undergrad at UW and I am studying both phil and ling and plan to get majors in both of them. I knew I wanted to do phil going in so I knocked out almost all of the phil courses needed to get a degree, but now I still need about 60 to graduate and thought I might as well go the ling route because I thought I might like it. Turns out I do and I am thinking about eventually doing comp ling at UW as well! My only problem is that I have very little experience in math (I did SL math in IB), limited experience in CS (Took CSE 162 last year), and limited experience in stats (have AP credit for stat 290). I am curious if it would be best to start knocking some of the lower level math lectures off the list (calc series (CSE 12x or 14x), or to start doing ling electives and wait to do the math stuff until I am hitting the end of my ling degree. I just don't know how much math or CS I am expected to have done to be competitive when applying. If anyone with experience could let me know, that would be amazing. Thank you so much!!

I am a final-year undergraduate linguistics student who hopes to pursue a master's degree in computational linguistics after graduation. This semester, the linguistics department of my university is offering a "Computational Methods in Linguistics" class for the first time, which I am enrolled in.

This is not a computer science or ML class (no technical prerequisites), and instead focuses on computational methods that are useful for language research. The tail end of the class is project-based, where each student has to devise a personal project which applies topics we learn in the class. These topics include introductory Python and corpus linguistics. The lectures are open-ended and aside from some mandatory coding assignments, the professor basically teaches us ad-hoc depending on what our project goals are / what we're aiming for professionally.

I am definitely more interested in the NLP side of things and less so in pure linguistic research done with the assistance of computational tools. I am also more than willing for the entirety of the project to be coding-based.

With that being said, and within the limited scope of the class, what might be a good project that I can put on my resume or application to grad school to demonstrate that I've dipped my toes into some NLP? So far, I've toyed with the idea of building a rudimentary verb conjugation tool for an endangered language, but I'm open to just about anything.

(I am currently also taking an intro to Java class, a linear algebra class, and have experience with Python through self-teaching)

What‘s the best YouTube video you know on the matter? I have watched one and I understand its content but it confuses me because it seems to contradict what we learned in the lecture..

I recently got accepted into this program (yay!!) but I honestly don’t know too much about it. I wanted to apply to a grad school in London and this one seemed to align with my interests. For reference, my top choice is Edinburgh’s Speech and Language Processing program (which I still haven’t heard back from) because I want to go into speech processing or synthesis since my main linguistic interest has always been phonology. Based on the course description and curriculum, it seems like a good program and has what I want, but I don’t know anything about its prospects or reputations. If you have any thoughts or are in the program yourself, let me know!

99% of people using LLMs to develop shit have no clue how they work. That's bullshit. What if you didn't know how a chainsaw worked and you tried to use one? You'd slice off your damn arm. So you learn how it works before you ever pick one up and turn it on.

Well it should be the same for LLMs. Everyoone who wants to use one should first need to build one from scratch. That means learn what a transformer model is and learn all the machine learning theory and math behind it, and program the gradients and cost functions and lambda functions and softmax hyper-regressions and whatever the hell else is involved in it. Don't just go "call LLM endpoint, give prompt, get output" you don't know what the hell you're even doing.

Hi everyone, I am a data scientist for a financial company and I develop NLP/LLM solutions for the company. I graduate from one of if not the most reputable university in Indonesia (ranked 400-500 QS) with an engineering (non CS/IT) degree graduating with a 3.43/4 GPA. I am yet to take IELTS but from simulations I could comfortably get at least an 8. Yet to take GRE as well.

I have strong interests in AI especially in the language processing area and I have found that compling or language technology programs suit me!

I am considering a CMU’s LTI or Gothenburg or Stuttgart but I am not sure if I would really be accepted with my credentials, so can you guys help provide decent (but realistic!) alternatives or any insight to the competitiveness of the programs.

(fees would not really be a problem since my country offers generous scholarships)

Im a current ling Major in my senior year looking at compling programs and i'm noticing that while most of the schools offer MS a few do MA's, is there any real difference between curriculum or degree value between them? My instinct is to avoid the MA but I have no idea if thats actually correct.

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thanks for all the help.

The only fully online master's in compling I've found is the UW one but it is extremely expensive for me, is there any more affordable option preferably EU based?

I have a background in both data analytics (mostly business analytics) and linguistics but I'd like to develop a better understanding of NLP and ML application in the field.

Thanks!

Hi all! I'm from South Korea looking to do masters in CompLing/NLP in German universities this year, and was wondering if anyone could take a look at my specs and possibly share some two cents.

About me:

• Currently a Korean/English simultaneous interpreter, with Master of Arts degree in KR/EN interpretation from a Korean uni. 4 years work experience and GPA 3.6/4.0 if that's of any relevance

• Bachelor in German literature and English literature. GPA 2.77/4.0 (Undergrad years werent my best)

• No courses taken or any experience with anything math/statistics/compsci

My specs are really very humbling and likely not the best fit for a compling or nlp degree from admission point of view, but I was always interested in languages and after several years in a field of work I'm good at but not too passionate in, I'd love to try a new field of study.

I am fully aware that this will be a pretty big shift and I will need to do a LOT of self-study, esp in math/stat/tech.

My long-term goal is to either be in the industry for the machine translation sector (likely a tech job) or if I decide to go academic, study preservation of endangered languages.

So far I've looked at Saarland, Konstanz, Potsdam, Heidelberg and Stuttgart.

I ran into lots of good words about Saarland and Stuttgart, but not sure if they will accept me. It would be be best if they do - I'm willing to do coursework prior to the beginning of the semester if needed.

I'm not fluent in German (B1 at best) but have experience living in Bonn and really like the country, also have friends there who can help be settle in. Also it seems German universities are renowned for compling too, so that would def work for me! :)

Would appreciate any tips, TIA!

Hello,

I am looking for CLs to work as a contractor for a European company. Please send me a message if you are interested in hearing more and applying.

​

Hello all, I hope you’re doing well. I’m a grade 12 high school student who hopes to enter the field of CompLing or NLP after university and pursue it as my career. My main question pertains to which undergraduate degrees would best prepare me for the job market and a fairly lucrative position in either field? Right now I’ve been accepted to do a double major in Linguistics and Computer Science at the University of Calgary and want to hear your guys’ thoughts on whether or not I’m taking the best options to prepare myself and stay competitive. Thanks so much.

hello, i'm a linguistics bachelor who is finding interests in computational linguistics. i'm in my second year and i'm looking around to see which options could help my career and my professor told me about digital humanities and it sounded very interesting. anyone who pursued these type of programs? where?

hi! a little background: i have a Linguistics BA from Michigan State, no coding experience, and i graduated in May of 2020. i haven’t directly used my degree in the workforce (i’m currently in software sales) so i’m pretty rusty on the linguistics side of things but it’s still a passion of mine. i have interest in NLP and was thinking of getting my masters in Comp Ling to pursue something like that career wise.

any advice on how to prepare to apply to a masters program with no coding experience? i also did the minimum reqs for math in undergrad which i believe was some algebra and a statistics class which again, i am quite rusty on lol. should i set aside 2024 for application prep and submit apps for a Fall 2025 start? i’d love to start sooner, just concerned about getting into a program with my current experience and distance from undergrad

I’m an international student who has been accepted into University of Liverpool’s MSc in Data Science and AI with a year in Industry programme. However, I’m still waiting to hear back from places like Manchester and Edinburgh who offer pure computational linguistics and speech and language processing masters. Liverpool gives me a two year degree, which includes the Year in Industry, whereas the other universities are a one year degree. What do you suggest I go for since my main interests are in NLP and that is the field that I want to work in?

I’m creating my final list of CompLing master’s programs to apply to, and I wanted to get your guys’ opinions on which one(s) are the best.

Top few I hear good things about:

• University of Washington
• Brandeis

Also seem good:

• Georgetown
• Carnegie Mellon
• University of British Columbia

Found on google but idk if they’re good:

• University of Arizona
• Montclair

Let me know if I should link any of them for convenience.

A bit about me: I’ve just finished a BA in linguistics and had a final GPA of 3.8. I got some academic awards, but it was a very linguistics heavy degree. I only took one math class in college (Discrete Structures), and I did well in AP Calculus BC, though it doesn’t appear on my college transcript. I’m currently taking an intro programming class part time as a non-degree student at a local college. I plan to do some more programming and math classes this winter and spring.

Let me know what you guys think!

I am currently looking at graduate school opportunities and I am weighing whether I should look for a general linguistics or a computational linguistics degree. I still have a lot to learn about compling careers, but I have some experience in ML and NLU and have further interest in ASR and TTS. I’m worried about going fully into a compling degree since I still might want to explore other linguistics career options. So, I’m wondering if an MA or MS in general linguistics is still marketable in compling careers.

Furthermore, I’m sure this is asked a lot but let me know if you know any programs that align with my interests. I am an American looking at universities in Europe. So far I like Edinburgh, Amsterdam, and Zurich.

Hello, I have a module that I need to do a short interview for of a profession I am interested in furthering in (I am a Linguistics student and have interest in working in computational linguistics.)

Would anyone in the field be willing to answer some questions about their job and career process for this, please? Thank you!

Check out this cool episode of linguistics podcast Tomayto Tomahto where Cory Shain, a professor at Stanford is interviewed. Interesting discussion about processing cost and language-selective cortex. Also, he offers great insight on how to balance the pros and cons of industry vs academia. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/computational-and-neurological-questions-of-language/id1616430508?i=1000634474307

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