TRANSLATION APPARATUS AND METHOD THEREOF

• US 20130268259A1
• Filed: 01/24/2013
• Published: 10/10/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/04/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: KIM, Ki Hyun
• Granted Patent: US 9,189,476 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/58 Use of machine translation, e.g. for multi-lingual retrieval, for server-side translation for client devices or for real-time translation
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/08 Text analysis or generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text, e.g. grapheme to phoneme translation, prosody generation or stress or intonation determination
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue

Abstract

Disclosed herein are a translation apparatus and a translation method. The translation apparatus includes: a speech input unit that receives a speech of a first language from a user; a control unit that generates sentences to be translated of the first language from the speech of the first language input from the speech input unit; a communication unit that transmits the sentences to be translated of the first language to a translation server and receives the sentences to be translated of a second language from the translation server; a display unit that displays the translated sentences of the second language along with previously translated sentences; a memory that stores a translation history including the sentences to be translated of the first language and the translated sentences of the second language; and a user input unit that receives an operation input of the previously translated sentences from a user.

Claims

1. A translation apparatus, comprising:

a speech input unit that receives a speech of a first language from a user;

a control unit that generates sentences to be translated of the first language from the speech of the first language input from the speech input unit;

a communication unit that transmits the sentences to be translated of the first language to a translation server and receives the sentences to be translated of a second language from the translation server;

a display unit that displays the translated sentences of the second language along with previously translated sentences;

a memory that stores a translation history including the sentences to be translated of the first language and the translated sentences of the second language; and

a user input unit that receives an operation input of the previously translated sentences from a user.

2. The translation apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a speech output unit that converts the translated sentences of the second language into a speech and outputs the translated sentences of the second language as a speech.

3. The translation apparatus of claim 1, wherein the control unit is configured to confirm whether the same words as words included in the sentences input from the user are present within the translation history according to the input of the user and if it is determined that the same words are present, display the same words.

4. The translation apparatus of claim 1, wherein the display unit displays at least one button that corrects errors of the displayed sentences to be translated of the first language by interaction with the user.

5. The translation apparatus of claim 4, wherein the control unit performs a control to display candidate sentence lists for correcting the errors of the sentences to be translated of the first language according to the operation of the button.

6. The translation apparatus of claim 5, wherein the control unit corrects the errors of the sentences to be translated by using the selected candidate sentences according to a selection of any one of the candidate sentences within the displayed candidate sentence lists.

7. The translation apparatus of claim 4, wherein the button includes at least one of figures, symbols, texts, and images for identifying the interaction with the user.

8. The translation apparatus of claim 1, wherein the generated sentences to be translated of the first language are displayed in a speech bubble form as a result of recognizing the speech of the first language input from the user.

9. The translation apparatus of claim 1, wherein when the first language is translated into the second language according to a request of a first speaker, the sentences to be translated of the first language and the translated sentences of the second language are displayed on one side of a screen, and

when the second language is translated into the first language according to a request of the second speaker, the sentences to be translated of the second language and the translated sentences of the first language are displayed on the other of the screen.

10. The translation apparatus of claim 1, wherein

the display unit displays the translated sentences of the second language along with the previously translated sentences, and

sequentially displays the sentences to be translated of the first language and the translated sentences of the second language generated into one pair in the generated order.

11. The translation apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a translation engine that generates the translated sentences of the second language corresponding to the sentences to be translated of the first language; and

a sentence analysis unit that generates at least one candidate sentence having a meaning similar to the sentences to be translated of the first language according to the correction request of the sentences to be translated of the first language from the user.

12. The translation apparatus of claim 11, further comprising:

a similarity calculation unit that calculates similarity between the sentences to be translated of the first language and the already translated sentences,

wherein the translation engine generates the translated sentences of the second language based on the similarity calculated from the similarity calculation unit.

13. A translation method, comprising:

generating sentences to be translated of a first language according to an operation input of already translated sentences displayed on a screen, when an automatic translation function is activated;

transmitting the sentences to be translated of the first language to a translation server and receiving sentences to be translated of a second language from the translation server; and

displaying the received translated sentences of the second language along with the previously translated sentences.

14. The translation apparatus of claim 13, wherein in the generating, the sentences to be translated of the first language are generated by performing an operation to select or correct all or a part of the already translated sentences displayed on the screen.

15. The translation apparatus of claim 13, wherein in the displaying, at least one button for correcting errors of the displayed sentences to be translated of the first language by interaction with the user is displayed.

16. The translation apparatus of claim 15, wherein in the displaying, candidate sentence lists for correcting the errors of the sentences to be translated of the first language according to an operation of the button are displayed.

17. The translation method of claim 13, wherein in the displaying, the generated sentences to be translated of the first language are displayed in a bubble form as a result of recognizing the speech of the first language input from the user.

18. The translation method of claim 13, wherein in the displaying, when the first language is translated into the second language according to a request of a first speaker, the sentences to be translated of the first language and the translated sentences of the second language are displayed on one side of a screen, and when the second language is translated into the first language according to a request of the second speaker, the sentences to be translated of the second language and the translated sentences of the first language are displayed on the other of the screen.

19. The translation method of claim 13, wherein in the displaying, the translated sentences of the second language are displayed along with the previously translated sentences, and

the sentences to be translated of the first language and the translated sentences of the second language generated into one pair are sequentially displayed in chronological order.