Natural Language Processing with Python

There’s a great resource available for those interested in Natural Language Processing with Python. It’s available for free here.

Here’s a little background on Natural Language Processing (NLP):

• NLP spans the disciplines of linguistics and artificial intelligence. It is typically concerned with speaking, reading, writing, and generating human speech.
• There are a lot of devices that use NLP technology: Siri, Amazon Echo, Google Home, and many others. It’s on the way to becoming a ubiquitous technology, embedded in places that would have seemed like science fiction in the recent past.
• AWS, Azure, and GCP have all added NLP services to their offerings.
• There are vast areas for the application of this technology that can make lives easier. This includes specialty applications for profession-specific language like AWS Comprehend Medical.

I encourage you to take a look at the book and spend some time trying out the concepts. A great way to try this out is with a Jupyter Notebook. I use a Docker-based Jupyter implementation that’s easy to get set up and running. Docker Hub user Jon Reeve has adapted the standard Jupyter/Scipy-notebook for NLP. Here’s how to run it (note: replace <path-to-local-host-directory> with the full path to a directory on your machine. All notebooks will be saved there).

docker run --rm -p 8888:8888 -e JUPYTER_ENABLE_LAB=yes -v <path-to-local-host-directory>:/home/jovyan jonreeve/nlp-jupyter-notebook

There are also a number of sample NLP Jupyter notebooks available for download. It’s a great way to keep learning about NLP and what it can do.

If you have any questions on NLP, let me know in the comments below or connect with me on LinkedIn! Other posts with free educational opportunities are available here. You can also sign up below for my monthly newsletter to get a summary of new posts and other newsworthy items.