How a Transformer Reads Text
A transformer does not read text the way people do. It breaks your sentence into small pieces, turns them into numbers, and then looks at all the pieces together.
This is a simple learning demo. The tokens and numbers below are simplified examples to build intuition, not real model output.
Type a sentence and press the button. Watch what happens before the transformer can do anything clever.
Watch a transformer read your sentence
Pick an example or type your own sentence, then move through each stage one step at a time. Each step reveals what happens and why.
The text is ready, now what?
Now the transformer has tokens. Next it needs to know:
- • Which word came first?
- • Which word came next?
- • Does word order change the meaning?
- • Transformers do not read text like humans do.
- • Text is split into tokens.
- • Tokens become numbers.
- • Numbers become internal representations.
- • The transformer processes tokens together.
- • This prepares the text for attention and deeper understanding.
A transformer reads text by converting it into tokens, numbers, and internal representations. Once the text is prepared, the model can start understanding relationships between words.