What is NLP?

NLP (Natural Language Processing) is a set of techniques for analyzing and extracting, and understanding meaningful information text.

We have various NLP applications in our lives. For example:

And obviously information retrieval systems such as Web search engines. For a better understanding of NLP techniques, consider referring the so-called “bibles”:

KoNLPy will help you to actually carry out some fundamental NLP tasks with Korean text. In case you’re interested in handling English text, check out NLTK.

What do I need to get started?

You have some prerequisites to use KoNLPy.

  1. Deep interest in natural languages and some familiarity with the Korean language
  2. Understanding of basic Python programming [1]
  3. A “good” text editor and terminal (or Python IDE) [2]
  4. A Python installation
  5. pip, the Python package manager

Got ‘em all? Then let’s go.

[1]If you’re new to Python, this tutorial should get you through in minutes: http://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/python/. If you’re up to putting in some more time, try The Hitchhiker’s Guide or Learn Python the hard way.
[2]Many use Sublime Text 2 for Python programming. Some others use Vim and Terminal. But other than these, there are numerous great text editors and Python IDEs out there, so take your pick!