GB2497284A

GB2497284A - A system to provide translations

Info

Publication number: GB2497284A
Application number: GB1120790.9A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Peter John Charles Spurgeon
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2011-12-04
Filing date: 2011-12-04
Publication date: 2013-06-12
Also published as: GB201120790D0

Abstract

A system that translates a word or phrase from one language to another in which the word or phrase to be translated is input in two different forms and one of these forms is translated into the second language and the other is left untranslated. Preferably the untranslated form is a non-standard digital representation of the characters of the word or phrase and the translated form is a standard digital representation.

Description

A Method and system to Provide a Translated Display

Background

When a person needs to translate a word from one language to another the normal means is to employ a dictionary that contains the words in one language printed adjacent to the translation in the other language. Another means, where a digital storage text entry and display device is used comprises of the steps of the user entering the word to be translated and then using a computa-tional programme to find the translation in a second language. A further means, when the user is connected to the internet, enables the user to choose the destination language from a list. Such programmes enable translations to be performed from one language to another, even where the user's keyboard may not be capable of entering the character set of the destination language -eg where an English word is being translated into Chinese or Russian. A further advantage of using an electronic digital device is that microphone and loudspeaker interfaces may also allow words to be spoken.

A disadvantage of devices using these methods is that the translated word does not appear adja-cent to the un-translated word. A further disadvantage is that the untranslated and the translated word is not spoken. When the user is unaware of the spelling of a word it is difficult to find the word in an alphabetically arranged dictionary, or a dictionary in a language where the user is unaware of the sounds attributed to characters in the dictionary order.

Description

The invention includes duplicate representations of words, phrases or texts in a first language on a display screen and a programme that translates one of the representations into a different lan-guage. Thus, in the ease where the duplicate is in English and the translated language is French then after the execution of the translation programme the display will contain the English and French translations. Various translation programmes are known, a common online' programme being Babelfish(TM). They compare text on the screen with texts in their own databases in the source language and then output the equivalent from their storage of the equivalents in the destination language. Some translator programmes are more successful than others in produc-ing a result that is grammatically correct and imparts the correct meaning. The invention may be incorporated in an electronic device during manufacture or it may be downloaded to a device or incorporated into a device by the transfer of digital data from a memory storage dev[ce.

Detailed Description

A few examples of the use of the invention are described. Due to the versatile nature of the invention it is not possible to show all the possible uses diagramatically.

In figure 1 a part of a typical interactive webpage 1 is shown. A column 2 comprises of words in English the words being in capital letters with spacing underline character between each letter, The column 3 contains the same words in English in lower case. Hypertext fields 4 click to choose second language" 4 includes a list of alternative languages and French has been se-lected, as shown by the pointer 6 The click to translate field 5 can now be pressed -resulting in the activation of the translation programme and a new display of figure 2 in which the all the words except for those in column 2 are translated into the specified second language.

Figure 3 shows an application after translation where the columns contain a phrases and the colunm 2 holds each phrase in non-translating form as a hyperlink to an audio file 7 such that the English phrase is spoken in the English language whenever it is activated. The underlining of words is used to indicate that an audio output may be obtained.

Figure 4 shows part of a display of the page of a dictionary where it is desired to emphasize the different meanings that may be attributed to a word. The word match 8 in column 2 is repeated in column 3 for the phrase A match is used to light a fire' and it match 9 is repeated for its sec-ond meaning The football match is to be played in the stadium tonight'. In order that the word match remains in both translations it is repeated in non-translating form in parenthesis (10).

Figure 4 shows the result of the translation, the two meanings of the word match being apparent to the user who is proficient in the second language.

It is likely that the means to provide a translated display will often have the untranslated lan-guage in English but all aspects of the patent are applicable in any language combination.

The untranslated text as illustrated consisted of capital letters separated by spaces, thc format can be changed to suit the translating programme and could include the word being in parenthesis, or italics, in bold type, letters separated by spaces or hyphens or by a non-printing digital code.

Another method to prevent a word or phrase from being translated is to have it represented in graphic form. The graphic form of the word could also include a pictorial representation of the When using the invention as a dictionary the words can be ordered alphabetically or in a pho-netic ordcr such that the alphabetic order is replaced by thc order of words that sound the same.

This may cause such words as Ostrich and Australia to appear in the same part of the dictionary and words red (colour) and read (past partieple of verb) to appear near resist whereas read (verb present) would appear also before reed (water plant, vibrating part in a musical instru-ment) and that would appear before reef (marine feature or reduction of a sail area).

A phonetic order is also dependant on the accent being represented -for example the word bath and bat maybe close in an English Midlands accent or bath and barn may be close together in a Southern English accent. It is convenient to define the phonetic order by means of keywords as shown in figure 5 that are spoken by a text to speech output programme or by the output of a digital audio file. The keywords can then direct the user to relevant dictionary translation dis-plays of the type illustrated in former figures.

The invention may be used in a remote interactive educational mode by including an area in the display for real-time text entry by the tutor or student having the same duplication of entries as described to enable either user to translate parts of the entry into his own language on his own display of the webpage. An example of this would be a tutor teaching English who enters texts of questions duplicated in English to a number of students of different nationalities who may then each translate the question into their own language if necessary. They can then attempt to answer the question in English for marking by the tutor.

The compilation of the various computational, translation and user interface means may be per- formed w[th newly-developed programmes, or with the aid of hypertext (html) or portable docu-ment format (pdt) files and proprietary programmes designed for various operating systems.

Individual components shown in the drawings are not limited to use in their drawings and they may be used in other drawings and in all aspects of the invention.

Claims

<claim-text>Claims 1. A translation method having an input of at least one word that word being input in the same language but in two different forms and a user input that enables a target language to be selected and a method and system that translates one of the forms into the chosen language and an output means that outputs the untranslated and the translated word to the user.</claim-text> <claim-text>2. A method according to claim liii which the input word is in the English language.</claim-text> <claim-text>3. A method according to any one of the previous claims in which the first form of input isa non-standard digital representation of the characters of the word, 4. A method according to any one of the previous claims in which the second form of input is a standard digital representation of the characters of the word, 5. A method according to any one of the previous claims in which the translation means has the ability to translate words in the second form.6. A method according to any one of the previous claims in which the translation means does not change the words in the first form.7. A method according to any one of the previous claims in which the output is in the form of dot matrix representation of the characters.8. A method according to any one of the previous claims in which the translated output is synthe-sized speech.9. A method according to any one of the previous claims in which the translating means is ac-cessed through an internet connection.10. A method according to any one of the previous claims incorporated in a hand-held electronic device.11. A method according to any one of the previous claims for use in language teaching.12. A method according to any one of the previous claims for use in connection with tourism.13. A method according to any one of the previous claims for use in connection with trade.</claim-text>