TW201312375A - Method and system for inputting Chinese character with unknown pronunciation using pinyin input method - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a method and system for inputting Chinese character with unknown pronunciation using pinyin input method. The method of the present invention includes: inputting a configuration pronunciation for a Chinese character with unknown pronunciation, and the configuration pronunciation is composed of the pronunciations of each component or partial components composing the Chinese character; searching a predetermined configuration pronunciation database based on the configuration pronunciation to find the corresponding Chinese characters; and, outputting the Chinese characters. When a user encountered a Chinese character with unknown pronunciation, the user may employ the present invention to continue using the phonetic input method without switching to other input method. Moreover, the present invention may be used as an expansion of the existed phonetic input methods and may be implemented on any electronic device supporting the pinyin input method.

Description

Method and system for inputting unknown Chinese characters by using pinyin input method

The present invention relates generally to Chinese character input, and more particularly to a method and system for allowing a user to input a Chinese character having an unknown pronunciation to an electronic device using a Pinyin input method, the method and system contributing to enhancing the capabilities of the existing Pinyin input method. And improve the user's input experience when inputting Chinese characters.

Pinyin is the letter representation of the pronunciation of Chinese characters. The pinyin input method is a very common method when a user inputs a Chinese character to an electronic device having an alphabetic keyboard (for example, a personal computer (PC), a notebook computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile phone, etc.). However, in order to input a Chinese character using the Pinyin input method, the user must know the pronunciation of the Chinese character (ie, Pinyin). When the user does not know the pronunciation of the Chinese characters, they have to use other alternative Chinese input methods to perform the input. For the user, some alternative input methods are very difficult to learn. Moreover, switching between different input methods also brings an unpleasant user experience.

At present, alternative methods for inputting unknown Chinese characters include five-stroke input method, stroke input method, and handwriting input method. These methods are generally based on the structure of Chinese characters, so that users are required to be familiar with the components or stroke sequences of corresponding Chinese characters in order to use them. In addition, the five-stroke input requires the user to remember a collection of basic coding elements, which is very expensive. Although the stroke input method is simpler than the five-stroke type, the user is still required to remember the stroke order of the Chinese characters, which greatly reduces the input speed. Although there is no such limitation in handwriting input, there are special requirements for hardware configuration and device capabilities. For example, a handwriting system on a mobile device requires the device to have a touch screen and a stylus. In addition, the handwriting system based on mouse clicks (usually used in the case of PCs or laptops) has a very poor user experience, because it is difficult to "draw" (rather than write) Chinese characters with a mouse. .

Therefore, it is necessary to provide a new Chinese character input method, which can input Chinese characters using the Pinyin input method even when the user does not know the Chinese character pronunciation, thereby avoiding switching between different input methods.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for inputting a pronunciation unknown unknown Chinese character by using a pinyin input method, comprising: inputting a glyph pronunciation of an unknown Chinese character, the glyph pronunciation being composed of the components of the components or parts of the Chinese character. Forming; searching for a predefined glyph pronunciation database according to the glyph pronunciation to find a corresponding Chinese character; and outputting the Chinese character.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for inputting a pronunciation unknown Chinese character by using a pinyin input method, comprising: input means for inputting a glyph pronunciation of an unknown Chinese character, the glyph pronunciation being composed of components or parts constituting the Chinese character The reading component is composed of: a searching device for searching a predefined font reading library according to the glyph pronunciation to find a corresponding Chinese character; and an output device for outputting the Chinese character.

In another embodiment, the method of the present invention also outputs a pronunciation of an unknown Chinese character for reading by the user.

The input method of the present invention eliminates the need for the user to have to switch to other input methods when encountering an unknown Chinese character. In addition, the technical solution of the present invention can be used as a natural extension of the commonly used pinyin input method, so that it can be implemented on any electronic device supporting the pinyin input method.

The invention is described below in conjunction with the drawings.

Figure 1 is a block diagram of a soundless unknown Chinese character input system 100 in accordance with the present invention. As shown, the system 100 includes an input device 101, a lookup device 102, and an output device 104. Additionally, in conjunction with the operation of the system 100, a glyph database 103 and a display 105 are also provided. Optionally, system 100 can also include selection means 106 for selecting the desired kanji if a plurality of results are output.

FIG. 2 shows a flow chart of the operation of system 100. As shown in the flow 200 of Fig. 2, first, in step S1, the input device 101 inputs a glyph pronunciation of a known unknown Chinese character. The glyph pronunciation consists of the pronunciation of the components or parts that make up the Chinese character. For example, the Chinese character "夯" is unknown to many users. The Chinese character consists of two components, "big" and "force", and the pronunciations "da" and "li" of each component are known. The glyph pronunciation of the Chinese character "夯" can be, for example, "da_li" or "da-i". The pinyin of each component can be connected with any connector or without a connector (for example, "dali"). In addition, glyph pronunciation can also describe the structure of Chinese characters. For example, the Chinese character "夯" is up and down, so its glyph pronunciation can be described as "shang_da_xia_li" or "shang-da-xia-li". Simplified, it can be described as "UdaLli", where U means "shang" and L means "xia". Typical structures of Chinese characters may be, for example, upper and lower structures, left and right structures, internal and external structures, and the like. The glyph pronunciation of Chinese characters having these structures can be similarly described. In addition, for a Chinese character containing a plurality of the same component (for example, "淼"), the glyph pronunciation can describe the number of repetitions of the component, for example, "san_shui" or "3_shui".

If the pronunciation of one or more components of a Chinese character is unknown, these components may be represented by X or other symbols in their glyph pronunciation. For example, the Chinese character "乩" (sound ji), its glyph pronunciation can be "zhan_X". Or, if you want to describe the structural features, the glyph pronunciation can be "zuo-zhan-you-X" or "LzhanRX" (where L means "left" and R means "right").

After receiving the glyph pronunciation of the unknown Chinese character, in step S2, the searching means 102 searches the pre-defined glyph database 103 based on the glyph pronunciation to find the corresponding Chinese character. A pre-encoded lookup table is stored in the glyph pronunciation database 103. The lookup table is, for example, a hash table in which Chinese characters whose pronunciation is unknown are retrieved in a data structure suitable for quick lookup. For example, the lookup table uses a glyph pronunciation (for example, "da_li") of the above-mentioned unknown Chinese characters as a key, and uses a corresponding Chinese character (for example, "夯") as a value. Similarly, in the lookup table, the glyph pronunciation of a Chinese character may include structural features. For example, the Chinese character "夯" is searched by "shang-da-xia-li". In addition, the same Chinese character can be retrieved through multiple keywords for the user to use. For example, two indexes "ren_gong" and "shang_ren_xia_gong" can be created for the Chinese character "same". Thus, no matter which glyph pronunciation the user inputs, the corresponding Chinese character can be found. In some embodiments, optionally, the lookup table may also include a pronunciation of the Chinese character, such as "hang(夯)". An example of a glyph pronunciation lookup table is given in Table 1 below.

As described above, if the pronunciation of one or more components of the Chinese character is unknown, correspondingly, in the lookup table, the partial pronunciation can be represented by X or other symbols. For example, the Chinese character "乩" (sound ji) can be retrieved using "zhan_X".

Alternatively, components whose pronunciation is unknown may not be included in the index key of the corresponding Chinese character. For example, the Chinese character "乩" can be easily retrieved using "zhan". In this case, the user can perform a fuzzy search on the glyph pronunciation database 103 by inputting "zhan". In this case, it is possible to find a plurality of results (Chinese characters) including the component pronunciation "zhan" from the lookup table. All results are output to the display 105 and the user can select the desired Chinese character therefrom. Alternatively, the Chinese characters may be sorted according to certain rules and then output to the display 105 so that the target Chinese characters are arranged as far as possible to facilitate the user to select and enhance the user experience.

The lookup result is returned to the output device 104. In step S3, the output device 104 outputs the found Chinese characters to the display 105. Alternatively, in a case where the glyph pronunciation lookup table includes a Chinese character pronunciation, the output device 104 also outputs the corresponding pronunciation to the display 105 (step S4). In the example shown in Fig. 2, not only the Chinese character "夯" whose pronunciation is unknown but also the pronunciation "hang" is displayed on the display 105. In this way, the user can learn the pronunciation of the Chinese character at the same time. Once the user learns the pronunciation of the uncommon word, he can directly input the pronunciation of the next input, so as to find the corresponding Chinese character according to the general pinyin input method.

As described above, in step S2, the search means 102 may find a plurality of Chinese characters corresponding to the input glyph pronunciation from the glyph pronunciation database 103. In this case, the output device 104 outputs all the results, and in step S5, the user can select the desired Chinese character therefrom using the selection device 106.

The pronunciation unknown Chinese character input method of the present invention can be used alone or can be realized as a natural extension of the existing common pinyin input method. Two examples are presented below.

Figure 3 is a first example of the system 100 of the present invention working in conjunction with a general pinyin input method. In this example, system 100 also includes switching means 301 for switching from the general pinyin input method to the method of the present invention when the user encounters a Chinese character whose pronunciation is unknown. In one example, the switching device can be any combination of keys, such as "ALT+CTRL+U." When the user uses the general pinyin input method, if a Chinese character whose pronunciation is unknown is encountered, the user can switch to the input mode according to the present invention by pressing "ALT+CTRL+U", thereby inputting the glyph pronunciation of the Chinese character. To find the corresponding Chinese characters.

Figure 4 is a second example of the system 100 of the present invention working in conjunction with a general pinyin input method. In this example, the input mode of the present invention works in parallel with the general pinyin input method. For example, when the input device 101 inputs the glyph pronunciation "da li" of the Chinese character "夯", the search device 102' searches not only the glyph sound database 103 but also the general pinyin database 401. The general pinyin database 401 stores known Chinese characters that are common in pronunciation, such as "big" and "power". Therefore, the output device 104' outputs not only the uncommon word "夯" found from the glyph pronunciation database 103 but also the Chinese character combination "Dali", "Dali" and the like which are found from the general pinyin database 106. All of these output results are displayed on display 105. In this case, system 100 also includes selection device 402. The user can use the selection device 402 to select the desired Chinese character from the output and learn its pronunciation. According to various embodiments, the output from the glyph database 103 and the output from the pinyin library 401 can be displayed in different colors or displayed on different lines to facilitate selection by the user.

As described above, the present invention provides a technical solution for inputting a pronunciation of an unknown Chinese character by using a general pinyin input method, which eliminates the user having to switch to another input method when encountering an unknown Chinese character (for example, a five-stroke input method). Need. This scheme can be used as a natural extension of the common Pinyin input method, so that users can maintain the convenience of the Pinyin input method without having to learn a new input method.

The Chinese character input method according to the present invention can be implemented on any electronic device supporting the Pinyin input method without requiring special hardware support like some other input methods (for example, handwriting input).

In addition, based on the same principle, the input method of the present invention can also be applied to Korean or Japanese input based on pronunciation, in order to solve the problem of input of unknown characters.

The present invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit and essential characteristics. For example, the algorithms described in the specific embodiments can be modified, and the system architecture does not depart from the basic spirit of the invention. The present embodiments are to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not limiting, and the scope of the invention All changes in the scope of the invention are thus included in the scope of the invention.

100‧‧‧Unknown Chinese character input system

101‧‧‧ Input device

102‧‧‧Search device

102’‧‧‧Search device

103‧‧‧Glyph pronunciation database

104‧‧‧Output device

104'‧‧‧ Output device

105‧‧‧ display

106‧‧‧Selection device

200‧‧‧ Process

301‧‧‧Switching device

401‧‧‧General Pinyin Database

402‧‧‧Selection device

S1~S5‧‧‧Steps

The present invention will be better understood from the following detailed description of the embodiments of the invention, in which <RTIgt; A block diagram of the Chinese character input system 100; FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the operation of the system 100 shown in FIG. 1; and FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a first example of the system 100 of the present invention working in conjunction with the general pinyin input method; Figure 4 is a block diagram of a second example of the system 100 of the present invention working in conjunction with a general pinyin input method.

100‧‧‧Unknown Chinese character input system

101‧‧‧ Input device

102‧‧‧Search device

103‧‧‧Glyph pronunciation database

104‧‧‧Output device

105‧‧‧ display

106‧‧‧Selection device

Claims (13)

A method for inputting an unknown Chinese character by using a pinyin input method, comprising: inputting a glyph pronunciation of an unknown Chinese character, the glyph pronunciation consisting of the pronunciation of each component or part of the components constituting the Chinese character; pre-defining according to the glyph pronunciation a glyph pronunciation database to find the corresponding Chinese character; and output the Chinese character. A method for inputting a pronunciation unknown unknown character by using a pinyin input method according to claim 1, wherein if the pronunciation of one or more components of the Chinese character is unknown, in the glyph pronunciation of the Chinese character, the component is used X means. The method for inputting a pronunciation unknown unknown character by using a pinyin input method according to claim 1, wherein if the searching step returns a plurality of Chinese characters, the method further comprises: selecting a desired Chinese character from the plurality of Chinese characters. The method for inputting a pronunciation unknown unknown character by using the pinyin input method as described in claim 1 of the patent application, further comprising: outputting the pronunciation of the Chinese character. The method for inputting a pronunciation unknown unknown character by using a pinyin input method according to the first aspect of the patent application, wherein the glyph pronunciation includes a structural feature of the Chinese character in addition to the pronunciation of each component. The method for inputting an unknown unknown Chinese character by using the pinyin input method according to the first aspect of the patent application includes: switching from the general pinyin input method to the method of inputting the unknown unknown Chinese character by using the pinyin input method before inputting the unknown Chinese character. The method for inputting a pronunciation unknown unknown character by using the pinyin input method according to the first aspect of the patent application, the method is used in parallel with the general pinyin input method, and the method further comprises: selecting the unknown unknown Chinese character from all the output results. The method for inputting an unknown unknown Chinese character by using the pinyin input method according to the seventh aspect of the patent application, wherein the output of the unknown Chinese character and the general pinyin input method is output in different colors or in different lines. A system for inputting a pronunciation unknown unknown Chinese character by using a pinyin input method, comprising: an input device for inputting a glyph pronunciation of an unknown Chinese character, the glyph pronunciation consisting of the pronunciations of the components or partial components constituting the Chinese character; a searching device, configured to search a pre-defined glyph pronunciation database according to the glyph pronunciation to find a corresponding Chinese character; An output device for outputting the Chinese character. A system for inputting a pronunciation unknown unknown character using a pinyin input method according to claim 9 of the patent application, wherein the output device further outputs a pronunciation of the Chinese character. The system for inputting a pronunciation unknown Chinese character by using the pinyin input method as described in claim 9 of the patent application, further comprising: a switching device for switching from the general pinyin input method to inputting the pronunciation using the pinyin input method before inputting the unknown unknown Chinese character The method of unknown Chinese characters. A system for inputting a pronunciation unknown unknown character using a pinyin input method according to claim 9, wherein if the pronunciation of one or more components of the Chinese character is unknown, in the glyph pronunciation of the Chinese character, the component is used X means. The system for inputting a pronunciation unknown Chinese character by using a pinyin input method according to claim 9, wherein if the searching device returns a plurality of Chinese characters, the system further comprises: a selecting means for selecting from the plurality of Chinese characters Required Chinese characters.