Chinese to english translation tool

• US 20070129932A1
• Filed: 12/01/2005
• Published: 06/07/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Chen, Yen-Fu, Dunsmoir, John
• Granted Patent: US 8,041,556 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/45 Example-based machine translation; Alignment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/53 Processing of non-Latin text kana-to-kanji conversion G06F40/129; vowelisation G06F40/232

Abstract

A Chinese to English Translation Tool (CETT) locates pre-existing translations of phrases and increases probabilities for a match by searching independently of proper nouns and Western characters. The CETT comprises an enhancement program, a search program and a display program. The CETT is adapted to access a translation database, a proper noun table, and an unmatched translation table. The translation database is a central repository of an accumulated body of translated literature. The proper noun database is a table showing the associations between English and Chinese for proper nouns.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

displaying a literal translation;

identifying a clause in the literal translation;

searching for a matching clause in a database containing a plurality of texts previously translated from Chinese to English; and

responsive to locating a matching clause, displaying the English translation for the matched clause.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

enhancing the database by marking all western characters so that the western characters may be ignored by a search program.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

enhancing the database by marking a plurality of proper nouns so that the plurality of proper nouns may be ignored by a search program.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

linking a marked proper noun to a proper noun table having a corresponding meaning.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

responsive to a failure to make a match, writing the clause to a file for manual translation.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

responsive to manually translating the clause, placing the clause and the translation into an unmatched clause file accessible by the search program.

7. A program product operable on a computer, the program product comprising:

a computer-usable medium;

wherein the computer usable medium comprises instructions comprising;

instructions for displaying a literal translation;

instructions for identifying a clause in the literal translation;

instructions for searching for a matching clause in a database containing a plurality of texts previously translated from Chinese to English; and

responsive to locating a matching clause, instructions for displaying the English translation for the matched clause.

8. The program product of claim 7 further comprising:

Instructions for enhancing the database by marking all western characters so that the western characters may be ignored by a search program.

9. The program product of claim 7 further comprising:

instructions for enhancing the database by marking a plurality of proper nouns so that the plurality of proper nouns may be ignored by a search program.

10. The program product of claim 9 further comprising:

instructions for linking a marked proper noun to a proper noun table having a corresponding meaning.

11. The program product of claim 7 further comprising:

responsive to a failure to make a match, instructions for writing the clause to a file for manual translation.

12. The program product of claim 7 further comprising:

responsive to manually translating the clause, instructions for placing the clause and the translation into an unmatched clause file accessible by the search program.

13. A program product operable on a computer, the program product comprising:

a computer-usable medium;

wherein the computer usable medium comprises instructions comprising;

an enhancement program for modifying a translation database in a way that will increase the probability of matches between searches;

a search program for identifying a match between a clause in the database and a clause identified by a user; and

a display program for displaying the match and the identified clause side by side for user approval.

14. The program product of claim 13 wherein the enhancement program further comprises:

marking all western characters so that the western characters may be ignored by a search program; and

marking a plurality of proper nouns so that the plurality of proper nouns may be ignored by a search program.

15. The program product of claim 14 further comprising:

linking a marked proper noun to a proper noun table having a corresponding meaning.

16. The program product of claim 13 further comprising:

responsive to a failure to make a match, writing the clause to a file for manual translation.

17. The program product of claim 13 further comprising:

responsive to manually translating the clause, placing the clause and the translation into an unmatched clause file accessible by the search program.

18. A graphical user interface (GUI) for translating a database script from a source language to a target language.