JPH0981570A - Translation device and translated sentence display method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable a user to easily refer to a translation while recognizing contents of the original. SOLUTION: An input part 101 which inputs a sentence in the first language and the indication which specifies a part as the translation object in the sentence in the first language, a translation part 104 which translates the indicated part of the sentence in the first language inputted by the input part 101 to generate a sentence in the second language, and a display part 106 which displays the sentence in the first language as the translation object inputted by the input part 101 and the sentence in the second language generated by the translation part 104 and displays the latter sentence near the part indicated as the translation object in the displayed sentence in the first language are provided.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a translation device for translating a sentence in a natural language into a sentence in another language and a translated sentence display method in the translation device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Many machine translation systems have been developed so far, but these are mainly used for translating a large amount of sentences in a first language such as an English manual into a second language such as Japanese. It is for later use of the translated text of. Therefore, a machine translation system is required to provide a translation that produces a highly complete translation.

By the way, with the progress of the information-oriented society, it becomes more necessary to select necessary information from various information available through networks and the like, and the machine translation system is also used for such purpose. Came.

That is, a machine translation system has come to be used so that necessary information can be simply selected from a large amount of sentences in the first language obtained through a network or the like. In this case, the machine translation system is used to selectively translate a part of a large amount of text and confirm whether or not it is necessary information. The translated text obtained by the machine translation system is not necessarily used later, but is intended to obtain information from the sentence (original text) in the first language.

Of course, it is possible to use the conventional machine translation system for the purpose of obtaining information, but the functions required for different purposes are different, and the operating environment for the user for the purpose of obtaining information is It wasn't optimal.

For example, a method of displaying sentences in the first language and the second language when performing machine translation is one example. There are mainly three conventional methods of displaying a sentence as follows. The first method is to divide the display screen vertically or horizontally,
A window for each language is provided, and the sentence is translated one by one. In some cases, this first method adds the function of scrolling both windows together. In the first method, the correspondence between the original sentence and the translated sentence is clear, but when comparing individual elements in the sentence, it is necessary to move the line of sight up and down or left and right of the display screen. It is a heavy burden on the person. Further, in the first method, since the display screen is roughly divided into two, the amount of the original sentence (sentence number) displayed on the screen is limited, and it is difficult to grasp the context of the translated sentence. .

The second method is to replace the displayed sentence in the first language with the translated sentence in the second language. The second method has the advantage that the layout of the sentence of the first language can be used for the sentence of the second language, but since the translated sentence of the first language is not displayed,
It becomes unclear which translated text each corresponds.
Therefore, there is a problem that it is difficult to obtain information in the first language that cannot be obtained only from the second language. For example,
Although the ordinary articles in Western languages are not translated in Japanese, it is sometimes impossible to judge from the translated text that was replaced with the original sentence whether the article was attached.

A third method is to provide a translated text editing window on the display screen and sequentially display the translation results for the designated first language sentence regardless of the correspondence between the original sentence and the translated sentence. In this case, the positional relationship such as the order relation of the sentences in the first language is not held, and the translated sentences are stored in the order specified by the user. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain the information of the first language by referring to the translated text displayed in the translated text editing window. As described above, in any of the methods, the display form is not easy for the user who uses the machine translation system to understand the content of the original sentence.

[0009]

As described above, in the conventional machine translation system, the original sentence in the first language and the translated sentence in the second language are displayed separately or mixed on the display screen. Therefore, for users who want to know the meaning of the sentence by partially translating the sentence in the first language and quickly obtain accurate information from the sentence in the first language, it is possible to handle the translated sentence. The original text was not easily and accurately grasped, and was not visually good.

In particular, when the target sentence is large in number, such as a long sentence of several tens of pages or more, when working on all the sentences, a large number of eye movements are required, so that eye strain or the like occurs. However, there is a drawback in that the work efficiency is significantly reduced.

The present invention has been made in consideration of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a translation device and a translated text display method capable of easily referring to a translated text while grasping the contents of the original text. And

[0012]

According to the present invention, there is provided input means for inputting an instruction for specifying a sentence in a first language and a portion to be translated in the sentence in the first language, and input by the input means. The translation means for translating the designated first language sentence about a designated portion to generate a second language sentence, the translation target first language sentence input by the input means, and A sentence for displaying a sentence in the second language generated by the translation means, which is generated by the translation device for the portion near the portion designated as the translation target in the displayed sentence in the first language. And a display unit for displaying a sentence in the second language.

As a result, the portion of the text (original text) in the first language designated by the user that is to be translated, for example, the text (translated text) in the second language obtained for one sentence blocks the display of the original text. Since it is displayed in the vicinity so that there is no such thing, it is possible to obtain information from the original text by referring to the translated text, and since the movement of the line of sight when reading the text of the original text and the translated text is minimized, physical effort is greatly reduced. The efficiency of the work of obtaining information from sentences other than the native language is significantly improved.

Further, the first language sentence input from the input means is memorized by adding information indicating a display position at the time of display for each part which can be translated. The position for displaying the sentence in the language is determined based on the instruction input by the input means and the information indicating the display position corresponding to the portion to be translated specified by the instruction.

Thus, for each portion (for example, one sentence) designated as the translation target for the first language, the position for displaying the sentence (translated sentence) in the second language near the display position of the sentence is determined. To be done. That is, since the display position of the translated sentence is set in association with the change of the portion to be translated, the movement of the line of sight when always reading the original sentence and the translated sentence can be minimized.

[0016]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the machine translation device in this embodiment. As shown in FIG. 1, the machine translation device includes an input unit 101, a system control unit 102, an editing unit 103, a translation unit 104, a translation dictionary unit 105, a display unit 106, and a document storage unit 107.

The input unit 101 includes a keyboard, a mouse, an O
It is composed of a CR, a magnetic tape device, a magnetic floppy disk device, and the like. The input unit 101 starts inputting data of a sentence (for example, Japanese sentence, English sentence, Chinese sentence) to be translated, and inputs commands for executing various editing / correction events. It is a thing. For example, the keyboard provided as the input unit 101 is provided with an “end key” for instructing the end of processing, a “translation key” for instructing the execution of translation, and the like.

The system control unit 102 controls the entire apparatus. The system control unit 102 sends sentence data or dictionary data from the input unit 101 to each unit, selects a sentence to be translated (for example, one sentence unit) based on a command instruction input from the input unit 101, It is for making selections.

The editing unit 103 edits text data of the first language selected by the system control unit 102,
Areas for editing the display screen of the display unit 106, that is, for moving the cursor on the display screen according to an instruction input from the input unit 101, and for displaying an original sentence or a translated sentence (an original sentence display region 206a and a translated sentence display region 206 described later).
It is for performing control such as position setting in b).

The translation unit 104 translates the sentence data in the first language selected by the system control unit 102 with reference to the dictionary of the translation dictionary unit 105 selected by the system control unit 102.

The translation dictionary unit 105 accommodates various dictionary data used when the translation unit 104 performs translation processing. The contents of the dictionary included in the translation dictionary unit 105 will be described later.

The display unit 106 displays a sentence (original sentence) in the first language to be translated which is input from the input unit 101, a sentence in the second language translated by the translation unit 104, and the like. The display unit 106 is controlled by the editing unit 103, as shown in FIG. 2, to display an original sentence display area 206a for displaying a sentence in the first language in the display screen 206 and a translated sentence for a specific sentence. Translation display area 206b
Is set. Original sentence display area 206a and translated sentence display area 2
Any of 06b can be freely changed with respect to the size and position of the area, but basically, in order to display as many original texts as possible, the original text display area 2 is displayed on the display screen 206.
A large area 06a is provided, and the translated text display area 206b is set as necessary. As the display unit 106, a CRT, a liquid crystal display, or the like is usually used as a unit capable of displaying characters.

The document storage unit 107 stores the sentence data of the first language and the sentence data of the second language independently of each other, and associates the first language data with the data of the second language as the translation result. Can be memorized.

Next, the contents of the dictionary included in the translation dictionary unit 105 will be described. As shown in FIG. 1, the translation dictionary unit 105 stores an inflection conversion dictionary 10 in which inflections for converting a word or a idiom whose inflection is changed into its original form are stored.
5a, a word / phrase dictionary 105 in which a translated word in the second language corresponding to the word / phrase in the first language is stored together with the part-of-speech information.
b, an analysis grammar dictionary 105c in which a grammar for analyzing the first language is stored, a conversion grammar dictionary 105d in which a conversion grammar from the first language to the second language is stored, and a converted sentence structure of the second language It contains a generative grammar dictionary 105e for determining the above, a morpheme generation grammar dictionary 105f for changing a word form such as the ending of the second language to complete a translated sentence, and the like.

Next, the operation of the machine translation device in this embodiment will be described. First, referring to the flow chart shown in FIG. 3, the flow of the translation process for the sentence input from the input unit 101 is taken as an example in which an original sentence in English of a first language is translated into a translated sentence in Japanese of a second language. While explaining.

Here, as a specific example, the fourth line (second line) among the English sentences as the first language displayed in the original text display area 206a by the display unit 106 as shown in FIG. Is a blank line) "More generally, how ca
n ordinary people, who are not professional program
mars, program computers? An example will be described in which a translation request for a sentence "" is received and the translation / display is performed.

First, an original sentence (sentence data) in English is read from the input unit 101. System control unit 102
Causes the input text data of the first language to be stored in the document storage unit 107 in a format as shown in FIG. 5 (step S1).

That is, the original sentence is stored for each sentence and consecutive sentence numbers are given to each sentence. Further, for each sentence, data indicating "start line", "start column", "end line", and "end column" indicating the display position when displayed in the original sentence display area 206a shown in FIG. 4 is stored.

It is assumed that the original text display area 206a in which the text is displayed on the display unit 106 has a width of 80 characters and a length of 40 lines. Further, when one half-width character is used for each of the left and right to display a frame indicating a region for displaying a sentence on the display screen 206, the number of characters in one line is 78 characters. This is equivalent to 39 characters when displaying Japanese.

When the original text (text data) is saved by the system control unit 102, the editing unit 103 causes the text data stored in the document storage unit 107 obtained via the system control unit 102 and the display position of each text. Based on the data indicating, the original text is displayed on the display unit 106 as shown in FIG. Further, the editing unit 103 moves the cursor for designating the sentence to be translated to the first sentence (step S2).

Thereafter, the process is executed in response to the command instructing the execution of the event input from the input unit 101 (step S3). In step S3, when an event other than the end of the process or the request to execute the translation is input, the event is processed according to the instruction input in step S9. This includes, for example, moving the cursor.

When the cursor movement is instructed, the editing unit 1
03 moves the cursor on the display screen according to the instruction. In the present embodiment, one sentence in which the cursor is positioned on the display screen, for example, one sentence in which the cursor is at the head is the translation target when the translation event is instructed. Move the cursor to specify the target sentence when you want to translate the original sentence, for example, when you want to translate other sentences that are before or after the current cursor position, but not immediately after the current cursor position. Done.

When the instruction to move the cursor exceeds 40 lines from the first line, the display of the original sentence is scrolled in the original sentence display area 206a to sequentially display the subsequent sentences.
After that, the process returns to step S3 again, and waits for an event input from the user.

When the "end key" provided on the keyboard of the input unit 101 is pressed to instruct the end of the process, the system control unit 102 ends the process (step S4).

On the other hand, when the "translation key" is pressed, the system control unit 102 determines that a translation request has been issued, and causes each unit to execute the processing of steps S6 to 8 below. First, the system control unit 102 outputs the sentence data of the corresponding sentence stored in the document storage unit 107 to the translation unit 104 according to the current cursor position controlled by the editing unit 103. In addition, the system control unit 102
Reads the data of “start line”, “start column”, “end line”, and “end column” indicating the display position of the corresponding sentence on the display screen 206 from the document storage unit 107 and outputs it to the editing unit 103.

The translation unit 104 translates the sentence data provided from the system control unit 102 using each dictionary of the translation dictionary unit 105. Here, “More generally, how can ordinary p” of sentence number 4 in the 4th line of FIG.
eople, who are not professional programmars, progr
am computers? It is assumed that the cursor is at the beginning of the sentence "."

The translation unit 104 translates the sentence data of the sentence to be translated by performing morphological analysis, syntactic analysis, etc. using the dictionary of the translation dictionary unit 105 to generate a translated sentence (step S6). It should be noted that various techniques such as morphological analysis and syntactic analysis necessary for translation have already been generally used, and thus detailed description thereof will be omitted.

It is assumed that the translation unit 104 has generated a translated sentence for the original sentence, "more generally, what kind of computer should ordinary people who are not specialized programmers program?". The translation unit 104 outputs the translation result to the editing unit 103 and the system control unit 102. The system control unit 102 stores the translated text in the document storage unit 107.
To memorize.

On the other hand, the editing unit 103 sets the translated sentence display area 206b for displaying the translated sentence on the display screen 206 of the display unit 106, and displays the translated sentence in the translated sentence display area 206b (step S7).

That is, the editing unit 103 sets the translated text display area 206b for displaying the translated text as follows. First, since the translated sentence generated by the translation has 49 characters, the editing unit 103 obtains, by calculation, that the translated sentence display area 206b needs two vertical lines when 39 characters are displayed per line.

The editing section 103 also finds the position on the display screen 206 where the translated sentence display area 206b should be set. That is, the editing unit 103 includes the system control unit 102.
Based on the "start line", "start column", "end line", and "end column" that indicate the display position of the sentence that is the translation target, the source text that is the translation target displayed in the source text display area 206a. The display position of the translated sentence display area 206b is set in the vicinity of the display position of the original sentence so that the display of is not hidden.

The "neighborhood" is defined as follows. 1st, 2nd, 3rd lines of the last line of the original text to be translated
Lines, 4 lines, or 5 lines below, or 1 line, 2 lines, 3 lines, 4 lines, or 5 lines above the start line where the original text is displayed,
Alternatively, the upper left column of the translated sentence display area 206b is located one character to the right of the last column of the last line of the original sentence, or the lower right column of the translated sentence display region 206b is located one character to the left of the start column of the original sentence. Shall be pointed out.

The display unit 106 displays the translated sentence display area 206b at the position determined by the editing unit 103 on the display screen 206.
Is provided to display the translated text obtained by the translation unit 104. FIG. 6 shows a state in which translated texts are displayed in the translated text display area 206b set on the display screen 206. Figure 6
In the original sentence display area 206a, a translated sentence display area 206b is provided in the line next to the display line of the original sentence to be translated (one line below the last line of the original sentence) to display the translated sentence. In this example, since the end line of the original sentence of sentence number 4 is the fifth line, the translated sentence display area 206b is provided at a position corresponding to the sixth and seventh lines of the original sentence display area 206a. Also, the translated text display area 2
As a result, 06b completely overlaps the original text display area 206a.

The original text to be translated is explicitly displayed with attributes (inversion, knitting, etc.) different from those of other original texts. As a result, the original text to be translated can be easily identified.

FIG. 7 shows a state in which the translated sentence display area 206b is set at a position different from that in FIG. In Figure 7,
The column after the last column of the last line of the original text, that is, the fifth column
The position is determined so that the 66th column of the line is the upper left column of the translated sentence display area 206b. The translated text display area 206b in FIG. 7 only partially overlaps the original text display area 206a.

Further, in the examples shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, since the translated sentence display area 206b overlaps the original sentence display area 206a, a part of the display of the original sentence that is not the translation target is hidden. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 8, the display content in the original text display area 206a is changed according to the position and size of the translated text display area 206b so that all the original texts are displayed so as not to overlap the translated text display area 206b. Is also possible.

In this case, the editing unit 103 calculates the number of lines required for the translated text display area 206b calculated according to the length of the translated text,
In addition to the start line and end line of the sentence (in this case, sentence number 5 or later) that comes after the sentence currently being translated, the original sentence display area 2 of the display unit 106 according to the start and end lines.
It is displayed on 06a.

In the example shown in FIG. 8, since the display position of the first sentence of the original sentence of sentence number 5 is the start line "5" and the end line "6", the line number 2 of the translated sentence display area 206b is 2 respectively. By adding, the display position when the translated sentence display area 206b is set becomes the start line “7”, the start column “68”, the end line “8”, and the end column “75”. Therefore, nothing is displayed from the fifth line 66 column to the seventh line 67 column of the original text display area 206a.
There is no original text whose display is hidden by b. By displaying the original sentence as shown in FIG. 8, it becomes easier to refer to the contexts before and after the original sentence, including the sentence to be translated.

As shown in FIGS. 6, 7 and 8 described above,
Although there are a plurality of display forms of the translated sentence display area 206b, which form to display the translated sentence is determined by, for example, setting the definition of “near” of the sentence to be translated in advance as a mode, or at any timing. Can be switched. The editing unit 103 has a preset “neighborhood”
The display position of the translated sentence display area 206b is determined in accordance with a mode indicating the definition of or the instruction to change the display form.

When the display of the translated sentence is completed in this way, the editing unit 103 moves the cursor to the beginning of the sentence following the sentence whose translation has been completed (step S8), and returns to step S3.
Here, when a further translation request is instructed, the system control unit 102 controls each unit to similarly translate the next original sentence. The translated text obtained by the translation is set in the translated text display area 206b in the vicinity of the original text to be translated as described above, and is displayed in that area.

For example, the original sentence display area 206a shown in FIG.
Then, "This problem ... (Omitted) ... is an unsolved one in
computer science. Is displayed in the translated sentence display area 206b.
However, when the translated sentence of this sentence is displayed, the translated sentence display area 206b is set at a position where the original sentence is not hidden and the translated sentence is displayed.

In this way, the original sentence in the first language displayed in the original sentence display area 206a is translated into an arbitrarily designated sentence, and the translated sentence obtained by the translation is displayed in the designated original sentence. A translated text display area 206b is provided and displayed so as not to be blocked. Therefore, since the original sentence corresponding to the translated sentence can be grasped easily and accurately, accurate information can be quickly obtained from the sentence of the original sentence.

The translated sentence display area 206b is provided near the translated sentence. That is, in response to designation of a sentence to be translated from the displayed sentence in the first language, a translated sentence display area 206b is provided near the sentence.
Since the translated text is displayed with a mark, even when performing a task of comparing the original text and the translated text for a large amount of text, the minimum line of sight movement is always required. The physical effort of can be greatly reduced. Therefore, it is possible to significantly improve the efficiency of the work of obtaining the necessary information from the sentence in the first language other than the native language.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, but can be carried out by appropriately modifying it without departing from the scope of the invention. For example, as shown in FIG. 9, by extracting section names included in a sentence, translating each section name, and presenting it as a table of contents,
The user can quickly find the part containing the required information. As a type, if it is difficult to create a table of contents, such as in a newspaper, before extracting the above-mentioned translation, extract keywords, key sentences, topic sentences, etc. from the text in advance, or summarize the entire text. It is possible to go.

Although the translated text is displayed here, the translated text does not necessarily have to be displayed visually.
For example, it is possible to output using voice synthesis. Furthermore, the degree of translation of the translated text depends on the user's English ability and
It can be adjusted at any time according to the level or the type of sentence for which information is desired. For example, regarding the expertise, it is possible to change the second language so that nouns are not translated to users who are familiar with the terms.

[0056]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, a portion of a display screen in which a sentence (original sentence) in the first language designated by the user is to be translated, for example, a sentence obtained for one sentence. Bilingual sentences (translated sentences) are displayed in the vicinity so as not to obstruct the display of the original sentence, so physical effort is significantly reduced, and a large amount of sentences in the first language other than the mother tongue can be efficiently used. It becomes possible to acquire the necessary information.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a machine translation device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a form of a display screen according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of this embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a state in which a sentence in a first language is displayed in an original sentence display area 206a of this embodiment.

5 is a diagram for explaining the content of data stored in a document storage unit 107 in FIG.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of a layout of a display screen used in this embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a layout of a display screen used in this embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a layout of a display screen used in this embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of a layout of a display screen used in this embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 101 ... Input part 102 ... System control part 103 ... Editing part 104 ... Translation part 105 ... Translation dictionary 105a ... Utilization change dictionary 105b ... Word / idiom dictionary 105c ... Analysis grammar dictionary 105d ... Conversion grammar dictionary 105e ... Generation grammar dictionary 105f ... Morpheme Generation grammar dictionary 106 ... Display unit 107 ... Document storage unit

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A first language sentence and an input unit for inputting an instruction for specifying a portion to be translated in the first language sentence, and a first language sentence input by the input unit. A translation unit that translates the designated portion to generate a sentence in the second language, a sentence in the first language input by the input unit, and a sentence in the second language generated by the translation unit. Display means for displaying, in the vicinity of a portion designated as a translation target in the displayed sentence in the first language, a display means for displaying the sentence in the second language generated by the translation means for the portion. A translation device comprising: 2. The first language sentence input from the input means is stored for each part that can be translated, with information indicating a display position at the time of display added, and the display means stores the second position. The position to display sentences in
The translation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the translation is determined based on an instruction input by the input unit and information indicating the display position corresponding to a translation target portion specified by the instruction. 3. A translation display method in a translation device for displaying a sentence in a second language generated by translating a sentence in a first language, wherein a portion to be translated in the displayed sentence in the first language. Is input, the sentence in the first language is translated to generate a sentence in the second language for the portion corresponding to the input instruction, and the generated sentence in the second language is displayed. A translated text display method characterized by displaying in the vicinity of a portion designated as a translation target in a sentence of a first language.