+ Teach yourself to read historical handwriting with Transkribus Learn!

For anyone who has ever struggled to decipher a word in a manuscript, help is at hand!  The first version of our new e-learning app, Transkribus Learn, is now live! Transkribus Learn allows users to train themselves to read historical handwriting by practicing transcribing individual words in a simple and easy-to-use interface.  Have a go!  Take a look at the instructions for the site or send us an email with any questions.

Transkribus Learn is available free of charge, although you need a Transkribus account to access the site. The platform currently has a selection of various scripts available for testing.  In the future, users will be able to upload their own documents to the platform as a training exercise for students or volunteers.

Transkribus Learn app generates selected lines from a manuscript one-by-one and asks users to transcribe a certain word.  Users can practice transcribing as many words as they desire.  They can move on to test what they have learnt.  The tool keeps a record of how many words have been transcribed correctly so the user can get an idea of their progress.  You can transcribe a vast amount of words once you get going!  It also works on mobile phones for any keen users who might like to brush up on their transcription skills on their commute.

Transkribus Learn is connected to the Handwritten Text Recognition technology in our Transkribus platform.  Computer-generated transcripts are compared to the suggested words submitted by users.  Once users have worked with Transkribus to train a model to process a set of documents, they can be included in Transkribus Learn too.

We hope that Transkribus Learn will be a welcome service for anyone who wants to become more familiar with historical handwriting – researchers, archivists, family historians, students and volunteers.  We look forward to hearing your feedback – just send us an email with any comments or questions.  Happy transcribing!