Techniques for customization of phonetic schemes

• US 20070276650A1
• Filed: 02/01/2007
• Published: 11/29/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/23/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sareen, Bhrighu, Kotipalli, Krishna V.
• Granted Patent: US 7,801,722 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/8
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/129 Handling non-Latin characters, e.g. kana-to-kanji conversion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/53 Processing of non-Latin text kana-to-kanji conversion G06F40/129; vowelisation G06F40/232

Abstract

Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for creating and using phonetic schemes. A phonetic scheme creation feature is provided to allow a user to create a phonetic scheme that has one or more available phonetic character combinations in a source language and a resulting one or more native characters in a destination language for each of the phonetic character combinations. A phonetic input application is provided that can read the phonetic scheme to translate a respective character combination that is input by the user in the source language into the corresponding resulting native characters in the destination language. The phonetic scheme can be stored in a format that can be transferred to another computer. A dynamic help file can be created to document the phonetic scheme created by the user.

Claims

1. A method for creating and using phonetic schemes comprising the steps of:

providing a phonetic scheme creation feature that is operable to allow a user to create a phonetic scheme, the phonetic scheme comprising one or more available phonetic character combinations in a source language and a resulting one or more native characters in a destination language for each of the phonetic character combinations; and

providing a phonetic input application that is operable to read the phonetic scheme to translate a respective character combination that is input by the user from the available phonetic character combinations in the source language into a corresponding one or more of the resulting native characters in the destination language.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing step comprises:

providing a suggestion list that includes a first set of phonetic character combinations of the available phonetic character combinations that can be entered by the user in the source language to achieve the corresponding one or more of the resulting native characters in the destination language, and displaying the corresponding one or more of the resulting native characters on a display upon receiving a selection from the suggestion list of the respective character combination.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the phonetic scheme creation feature is further operable to allow a user to modify an existing phonetic scheme for use with the phonetic input application.

4. The method of claim 1, the phonetic scheme creation feature is further operable to store the phonetic scheme in a user-readable file.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the user-readable file is an XML file format.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the phonetic scheme creation feature is operable to store the phonetic scheme in a compiled phonetic scheme file.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the phonetic scheme is stored in a format that allows the phonetic scheme to easily be transferred to another computer.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the phonetic input application is operable to allow the user to select a desired phonetic scheme from a plurality of available phonetic schemes.

9. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform the steps recited in claim 1.

10. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform steps comprising:

provide a phonetic scheme creation feature to allow a user to create a phonetic scheme, the phonetic scheme comprising one or more available phonetic character combinations in a source language and a resulting one or more native characters in a destination language for each of the phonetic character combinations;

store the phonetic scheme in a format that can be transferred to another computer; and

provide the phonetic scheme to a phonetic input application.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the storing step is operable to store the phonetic scheme in a user-readable file format.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the storing step is operable to store the user-readable file format as an XML file format.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the storing step is operable to store the phonetic scheme in a compiled phonetic scheme file.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the storing step is operable to allow the user to select an option to digitally sign the phonetic scheme.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the phonetic scheme creation feature is further operable to allow a user to modify an existing phonetic scheme for use with the phonetic input application.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the phonetic input application is operable to allow the user to select a particular phonetic scheme from a plurality of available phonetic schemes.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the phonetic scheme creation feature includes a dynamic help creation feature that is operable to create a dynamic help file to document the phonetic scheme created by the user.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the dynamic help creation feature is operable to allow the user to further customize a set of contents contained in the dynamic help file.

19. A method for creating and documenting phonetic schemes comprising the steps of:

providing a phonetic scheme creation feature that is operable to allow a user to create a phonetic scheme, the phonetic scheme comprising one or more available phonetic character combinations in a source language and a resulting one or more native characters in a destination language for each of the phonetic character combinations; and

providing a dynamic help creation feature that is operable to create a dynamic help file to document the phonetic scheme created by the user.

20. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform the steps recited in claim 19.