In this chapter we introduced NLP and it uses. We found that it is used in many places to solve many different types of problems ranging from simple searches to sophisticated classification problems. The Java support for NLP in terms of core string support and advanced NLP libraries were presented. The basic NLP tasks were explained and illustrated using code. We also examined the process of training, verifying, and using models.

In this book, we will lay the foundation for using the basic NLP tasks using both simple and more sophisticated approaches. You may find that some problems require only simple approaches and when that is the case, knowing how to use the simple techniques may be more than adequate. In other situations, a more complex technique may be needed. In either case, you will be prepared to identify what tool is needed and be able to choose the appropriate technique for the task.

In the next chapter, we will examine the process of tokenization in depth and see how it can be used to find parts of text.