AUTOMATIC INTERPRETATION APPARATUS AND METHOD USING UTTERANCE SIMILARITY MEASURE

• US 20110153309A1
• Filed: 12/15/2010
• Published: 06/23/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: KIM, Jeong Se, KIM, Chang Hyun, KIM, Sang Hun, YUN, Seung
• Application Number:
  US12/969,017
• Publication Number:
  US 20110153309A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/51 Translation evaluation

Abstract

Provided is an automatic interpretation apparatus including a voice recognizing unit, a language processing unit, a similarity calculating unit, a sentence translating unit, and a voice synthesizing unit. The voice recognizing unit receives a first-language voice and generates a first-language sentence through a voice recognition operation. The language processing unit extracts elements included in the first-language sentence. The similarity calculating unit compares the extracted elements with elements included in a translated sentence stored in a translated sentence database and calculates the similarity between the first-language sentence and the translated sentence on the basis of the comparison result. The sentence translating unit translates the first-language sentence into a second-language sentence with reference to the translated sentence database according to the calculated similarity. The voice synthesizing unit detects voice data corresponding to the second-language sentence and synthesizes the detected voice data to output an analog voice signal corresponding to the second-language sentence.

Claims

1. An automatic interpretation apparatus comprising:

a voice recognizing unit receiving a first-language voice and generating a first-language sentence through a voice recognition operation;

a language processing unit extracting elements included in the first-language sentence;

a similarity calculating unit comparing the extracted elements with elements included in a translated sentence stored in a translated sentence database and calculating the similarity between the first-language sentence and the translated sentence on the basis of the comparison result;

a sentence translating unit translating the first-language sentence into a second-language sentence with reference to the translated sentence database according to the calculated similarity; and

a voice synthesizing unit detecting voice data corresponding to the second-language sentence and synthesizing the detected voice data to output an analog voice signal corresponding to the second-language sentence.

2. The automatic interpretation apparatus of claim 1, wherein the voice recognizing unit calculates a confidence score representing a word-to-word mapping rate between the first-language voice and the first-language sentence.

3. The automatic interpretation apparatus of claim 2, wherein the language processing unit extracts word, word segmentation, morpheme, speech part, sentence pattern, tense, affirmation, negation, modality information, speech act representing the flow of conversation, a word similar to the word, and a hetero-form word for the word as the elements.

4. The automatic interpretation apparatus of claim 3, wherein the similarity calculating unit uses the confidence score to calculate the similarity between the extracted elements and the elements included in the translated sentence.

5. The automatic interpretation apparatus of claim 1, wherein if the calculated similarity is higher than a predetermined threshold value, the similarity calculating unit translates the first-language sentence into the second-language sentence with reference to the translated sentence database and transfers the second-language sentence to the voice synthesizing unit without passing the second-language sentence through the sentence translating unit.

6. The automatic interpretation apparatus of claim 1, wherein if the calculated similarity is lower than a predetermined threshold value, the sentence translating unit receives the first-language sentence through the similarity calculating unit and translates the first-language sentence into the second-language sentence with reference to the translated sentence database.

7. An automatic interpretation method comprising:

receiving a first-language voice and generating a first-language sentence through a voice recognition operation;

extracting elements included in the first-language sentence;

comparing the extracted elements with elements included in a translated sentence stored in a translated sentence database and calculating the similarity between the first-language sentence and the translated sentence on the basis of the comparison result;

receiving the first-language sentence according to the calculated similarity and translating the first-language sentence into a second-language sentence with reference to the translated sentence database; and

detecting voice data corresponding to the second-language sentence and synthesizing the detected voice data to output an analog voice signal corresponding to the second-language sentence.

8. The automatic interpretation method of claim 7, wherein the generating of the first-language sentence comprises calculating a confidence score representing a word-to-word mapping rate between the first-language voice and the first-language sentence.

9. The automatic interpretation method of claim 8, wherein the calculating of the similarity comprises using the confidence score to calculate the similarity between the extracted elements and the elements included in the translated sentence.

10. The automatic interpretation method of claim 7, wherein the elements include word, word segmentation, morpheme, speech part, sentence pattern, tense, affirmation, negation, modality information, speech act representing the flow of conversation, a word similar to the word, and a hetero-form word for the word.

11. The automatic interpretation method of claim 7, wherein the calculating of the similarity comprises translating the first-language sentence into the second-language sentence with reference to the translated sentence database if the calculated similarity is higher than a predetermined threshold value.

12. The automatic interpretation method of claim 7, wherein if the calculated similarity is lower than a predetermined threshold value, the translating of the first-language sentence into the second-language sentence is performed not in the calculating of the similarity but in the translating of the first-language sentence into the second-language sentence.