Method, apparatus, system, and computer program product for machine translation

• US 20080077392A1
• Filed: 09/11/2007
• Published: 03/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation), Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Kamatani, Satoshi, Chino, Tetsuro, Furihata, Kentaro
• Granted Patent: US 8,214,197 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/45 Example-based machine translation; Alignment
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/005 Language recognition

Abstract

A machine translation apparatus includes a translating unit that translates a source language document into a translated document described in a target language, and creates an ambiguous portion that is a word or a sentence having an ambiguity occurred during translation; a storing unit that stores the translated document and the ambiguous portion; a speech receiving unit that receives a speech in the source language; a recognition unit that recognizes the speech received and creates a source language speech sentence as a recognition result; a translation updating unit that updates the translated language document by retranslating a part of a speech content of the source language speech sentence to which the ambiguous portion corresponds, when the source language document includes the ambiguous portion; and a display control unit that displays the updated translated document on a display unit.

Claims

1. A machine translation apparatus comprising:

a document receiving unit that receives an input of a source language document described in a source language;

a translating unit that translates the source language document into a translated document described in a target language, and creates an ambiguous portion that is a word or a sentence having an ambiguity occurred during translation;

a storing unit that stores the translated document and the ambiguous portion;

a speech receiving unit that receives a speech in the source language;

a recognition unit that recognizes the speech received by the speech receiving unit and creates a source language speech sentence as a recognition result;

a translation updating unit that updates the translated language document stored in the storing unit by retranslating a part of a speech content of the source language speech sentence to which the ambiguous portion corresponds, when the source language document includes the ambiguous portion; and

a display control unit that displays the translated document updated by the translation updating unit on a display unit.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the translation updating unit includes

an extracting unit that extracts a source language sentence relating to the source language speech sentence from the source language document;

and

a selecting unit that selects a translation result of the part of the speech content corresponding to the ambiguous portion as a translation result of the ambiguous portion, when the source language sentence extracted by the extracting unit includes the ambiguous portion.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the extracting unit divides the source language document into a certain range of parts that respectively includes at least a sentence, calculates each of similarities between each of the sentences included in each of the certain range of the parts and the source language speech sentence, retrieves one of the certain range of the parts that includes a sentence having a maximum similarity to the source language speech sentence, and extracts the source language sentence from the retrieved one of the certain range of the parts.

4. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the extracting unit calculates each of similarities between words included in each of the sentences contained in the certain range of the parts and words included in the source language speech sentence, and extracts one of the source language sentences that includes words having a maximum similarity to the words included in the source language speech sentence.

5. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the extracting unit retrieves information on a certain range of a part of the source language document that includes at least one page, chapter, clause, or paragraph from the source language speech sentence, and extracts the source language sentence from the certain range of the part of the source language document.

6. The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the extracting unit calculates each of similarities between words included in each of the sentences included in the certain range of the part and words included in the source language speech sentence, and extracts one of the sentences that includes words having a maximum similarity to the words included in the source language speech sentence.

7. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

the translating unit creates an ambiguous portion in which an ambiguity occurs during selection of a translated word, and

the selecting unit selects a translated word selected according to the part of the speech content corresponding to the ambiguous portion as a translation of the ambiguous portion, when the source language sentence includes the ambiguous portion in which the ambiguity occurs in the selection of the translated word.

8. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein

the translating unit creates an ambiguous portion in which an ambiguity occurs during selection of a dependency of a word, and

the selecting unit selects a dependency in the part of the speech content corresponding to the ambiguous portion as a dependency in the ambiguous portion, when the source language sentence includes the ambiguous portion in which the ambiguity occurs during the selection of the dependency.

9. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the storing unit stores the translated document and the ambiguous portion in which an ambiguity occurs in the word or sentence in the source language document, and

the display control unit displays the translated document and information for indicating the portions in which the ambiguities occur correspondingly.

10. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein

the storing unit stores the translated document, the ambiguous portion, and types of ambiguities, and

the display control unit further displays the translated document and the types of the ambiguities on the ambiguous portion of the translated document correspondingly.

11. A machine translation system comprising:

a display apparatus that displays a source language document described in a source language; and

a machine translation apparatus that translates the source language document into a translated document described in a target language as a translation result, and that is connected to the display apparatus via a network, wherein

the machine translation apparatus includes;

a document receiving unit that receives an input of the source language document;

a translating unit that translates the source language document into the translated document, and creates an ambiguous portion that is a word or a sentence having an ambiguity occurred during translation;

a storing unit that stores the translated document and the ambiguous portion;

a speech receiving unit that receives a speech in the source language;

a recognition unit that recognizes the speech received by the speech receiving unit and creates a source language speech sentence as a recognition result;

a translation updating unit that updates the translated language document stored in the storing unit by retranslating a part of a speech content of the source language speech sentence to which the ambiguous portion corresponds, when the source language document includes the ambiguous portion;

a first display control unit that displays the translated document updated by the translation updating unit on a first display unit; and

a transmitting unit that transmits the ambiguous portion stored in the storing unit to the display apparatus, and

the display apparatus includes;

a receiving unit that receives the ambiguous portion from the machine translation apparatus; and

a second display control unit that displays the source language document on a second display unit, the source language document including information for indicating occurrence of the ambiguous portion where the ambiguity occurs based on the ambiguous portion received by the receiving unit.

12. A machine translation method comprising:

receiving an input of a source language document described in a source language;

translating the source language document into a translated document described in a target language, and creating an ambiguous portion that is a word or a sentence having an ambiguity occurred during translation;

storing the translated document and the ambiguous portion in a storing unit;

receiving a speech in the source language;

recognizing the speech and creating a source language speech sentence as a recognition result;

updating the translated language document stored in the storing unit by retranslating a part of a speech content of the source language speech sentence to which the ambiguous portion corresponds, when the source language document includes the ambiguous portion; and

displaying the translated document updated in the updating on a display unit.

13. A computer program product having a computer readable medium including programmed instructions for machine translation, wherein the instructions, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform:

receiving an input of a source language document described in a source language;

translating the source language document into a translated document described in a target language, and creating an ambiguous portion that is a word or a sentence having an ambiguity occurred during translation;

storing the translated document and the ambiguous portion in a storing unit;

receiving a speech in the source language;

recognizing the speech and creating a source language speech sentence as a recognition result;

updating the translated language document stored in the storing unit by retranslating a part of a speech content of the source language speech sentence to which the ambiguous portion corresponds, when the source language document includes the ambiguous portion; and

displaying the translated document updated in the updating on a display unit.