Enhanced Chinese character/Pin Yin/English translator

• US 20060184352A1
• Filed: 02/17/2005
• Published: 08/17/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: X Corp. (f/k/a Twitter, Inc.) (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Chen, Yen-Fu, Dunsmoir, John W., Shankar, Hari
• Granted Patent: US 7,676,357 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/53 Processing of non-Latin text kana-to-kanji conversion G06F40/129; vowelisation G06F40/232

Abstract

A method for the rapid, dynamic conversion of Pin Yin words is disclosed. The present invention comprises a web-based computer program. The user identifies an input which may be a hybrid or unaccented Pin Yin word. The character is translated dynamically into an accented Pin Yin word, a Simplified Chinese character or a Traditional Chinese character. The translated character is then displayed. The translation is done in the web page without a round trip to the server.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

using a web based computer program, identifying an input in a web page and translating the input word by word so that the translation is done in the web page without a round trip to a server.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer program accepts input in hybrid Pin Yin.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer program accepts input in unaccented Pin Yin.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the translation comprises accented Pin Yin words.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the translation comprises Traditional Chinese characters.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the translation comprises Simplified Chinese characters.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

using a word context to refine the translation.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

using a word context to refine the translation after an additional input.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the additional input is a modified character from a group and the group is frozen except for the modified character.

10. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

using a word context to refine the translation at the end of each of a sentence of input.

11. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

displaying an alternative translation to the user when there is an ambiguity, and displaying a translation selected by the user from a plurality of alternatives provided to the user.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

toggling between an original input word and a translated character in response to an input from a user.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

generating an additional window to display a second form of translation.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

updating a content of the additional window in response to an input from a user.

15. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

displaying in the additional window a character selected by a user from the original translation.

16. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

giving the user an option of whether a character identified by the user and displayed in the additional window replaces a character being displayed in the additional window or is in addition to the character being displayed in the additional window.

17. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

displaying in the additional window all characters on a selected side of a delimiter, wherein the delimiter is placed by the user on a display of characters of an original translation.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the original translation and the second form of translation consist of a plurality of Chinese characters, and the user is given a choice of direction of the second form of translation between a traditional format and a left to right, top to bottom format.

19. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

searching a dictionary for words matching a plurality of selected Chinese characters.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the plurality of selected Chinese characters used for the search need not be consecutive.

21. A computer program product comprising:

a first plurality of instructions to cause a computer to translate an identified input in a web page representing characters of a language character by character so that the identified input is converted from accented Pin Yin into traditional Chinese characters or Simplified Chinese characters.

22. The computer program product of claim 21 wherein the identified input is converted from unaccented or hybrid Pin Yin into accented Pin Yin.

23. The computer program product of claim 21 further comprising:

a second plurality of instructions to cause the computer, responsive to a user selection, to determine the output.

24. The computer program product of claim 23 further comprising:

a third plurality of instructions to cause the computer to generate a child window for an additional display relating to a currently translated character.

25. The computer program product of claim 24 further comprising:

a fourth plurality of instructions to cause the computer to apply context logic.

26. The computer program product of claim 25 further comprising:

a fifth plurality of instructions to cause the computer to perform a search based on a group of characters wherein one character from the group is modified and the remaining characters are frozen.

27. The computer program product of claim 26 further comprising:

a sixth plurality of instructions to cause the computer to perform disambiguation.