JPH01199272A - Electronic dictionary - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To ensure extraction of the effective information even in case the language information corresponding directly to a 1st language information is not available in a retrieving system by storing the combination of the 1st language information and another relative 1st language information. CONSTITUTION:A Japanese word 'NE' (sound) is supplied and an appropriate equivalent to 'NE' is not available. In such a case, another Japanese reading sound 'OTO' is displayed in Roman characters. At the same time, an arrow turned to the right is put at the left side of the 'OTO'. Then an English equivalent 'sound' can be obtained to 'OTO' with input of this Japanese word. Thus it is possible to avoid such a case where an equivalent word (wrong word) approximate to the correct word is unconsciously used despite the absence of a proper equivalent word.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an electronic dictionary, and particularly to an electronic dictionary that inputs first language information and outputs second language information corresponding to the first language information. be.

[Prior Art] Electronic dictionaries, electronic translators, and the like as described above have been known. In this type of device, for example, Japanese words and sentences are input, and the words and sentences translated into a foreign language such as English are displayed and output.

The process of converting the first language information into the second language information is performed by searching a memory in which the first language and the second language are stored in correspondence with each other for the first language information using a microprocessor. The mainstream method of output is display output using a liquid crystal display or the like, but methods such as audio output are also possible.

[Problem to be solved by the invention] When considering an electronic dictionary configured as a Japanese dictionary, the simplest one is one that inputs a Japanese word and outputs one English word with the corresponding meaning. It is. For example, if the word "oto (sound)" is input, rsoundJ is output as the English translation.

For this reason, a large number of combinations of input words and output translation words are stored in a storage means such as ROM of the device.
If a certain word is entered.

First, it is checked whether the same word as the input word is stored in the storage means, and if the same word is found, the stored translation is output in association with it.

However, in the previous example, the kanji ``on'' has on-yomi readings such as ``on'' and ``ne'' in addition to ``oto,'' but these on-yomi generally have no translations; It is possible to output the translated word r sound J in response to the input word 'on', but when the device is used for learning, the learner who is allowed to output only this combination will be
There is a possibility that you will remember the Japanese translation of sOundJ as "on".

The present invention aims to solve the above-mentioned disadvantages.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to solve the above problems, in the present invention, 88
In an electronic dictionary that inputs one language information and outputs second language information corresponding to the if language information, if there is no second language information corresponding to the first language information, A storage means is provided that stores other related first language information in combination with the first language information, and the first language information that does not have the corresponding second language information is input. In this case, the first language information stored in combination with the first language information is output by referring to the storage means.

[Sakukawa] According to the above configuration, if the second language information corresponding to the first language information does not exist, other corresponding first language information is output, so this first language information Effective information can be extracted by searching from linguistic information.

[Example] The present invention will be described in detail below based on an example shown in one drawing. The device shown below is an electronic dictionary that can be used as a Japanese-English dictionary.

FIG. 1 shows a top view of an electronic dictionary employing the present invention. A keyboard and a display 4 are provided on the top surface of the device main body l.

The keyboard is divided into input key 2 and function key 3.

However, the keyboard layout is not limited to this and is arbitrary. In the case of this embodiment, Japanese is input using the input key 2 in Roman letters.

The display 4 has an area 4a for displaying input Japanese words (reading and kanji) and an area 4b for displaying the corresponding English words.

The function keys 3 include the following keys.

Keys 3a and 3b are keys for commanding power on and off of the device, respectively. Further, when the key 3a is operated with the power turned on, it operates as a display clear key. The key 30.3C with left and right arrows is a cursor key, and is used to control the position of the editing cursor on the display 4.

The conversion key IO is used to instruct a process to convert input Japanese words into English words.

That is, when rOTOJ is input from input key 2, this Roman character is converted to hiragana ``oto'' and displayed in the upper row of area 4a. Therefore.

When the conversion key 10 is pressed, the kanji characters "on" and "rsound" are displayed and output in the lower part of the area 4a and 4b.

Although such an operation is well known, in this embodiment, let us consider the case where rNEJ is input as shown in FIG. 2, that is, when "ne, (on)" is input as the input Japanese.

In this case, conventionally, the word would be treated as untranslatable because there is no corresponding translation, or the word would be output as rsoundJ, which is the same as "oto" as mentioned above, which could lead to mistranslation. In the example, as shown in Figure 2, the Roman alphabet rOTOJ is output in the display area 4b, and a right-pointing arrow is displayed to the left of it, so that when that word is input, the related ``oto'' (sound) is displayed. Indicates that translated words can be output.

By performing such an operation, the operator can input "oto" again and find out the correct translation.

The configuration for realizing the above operation will be described in detail below.

FIG. 3 shows the structure of the control system of the device shown in FIG.

The Roman characters input from the input key 2 in Figure 1 are converted to character codes (ASCII codes, etc.) via the encoder 6, and then sent to the Roman character discrimination circuit #-6a, which is comprised of a ROM table, etc. ) and stored in the key manual buffer 7. The kana input information accumulated in the key manual buffer 7 is output to the match determining section 8 and the search table 9.

The operation of the device is controlled by a control section 14 composed of a microprocessor or the like. A control program (described later) for the control unit 14 is stored in the ROM 14a.

The search table 9 is composed of a table in a ROM, etc., and is an address in the memory 13 at which a search should be started according to the character information at the beginning of a word in kana, which is stored in the key manual buffer 7 in response to the operation of the conversion key IO. is determined, and the kanji and English words are output from the memory 13.

Address control during reading and writing of the memory 13 is carried out by the search table 9 and the control unit 14 via the address counter 15, address register IT, and address decoder 12.

The storage state of the memory 13 is shown in FIG.
In the dress "'LX-1.aX, ax+t...", Japanese words in hiragana, kanji, and English words corresponding to their meanings are sequentially divided into Japanese and English words in the form of character codes, in the order of Japanese hiragana, kanji, and English tn words. It is stored with a code (not shown) in between.

In the case of "on" mentioned above, the kanji code for "on" is stored for the reading of "on" at address ax-1, but in this case, the translated word is not stored, and the Roman character rOTOJ is stored instead. A code of a rightward arrow is stored at the beginning of the Roman alphabet "0TOJ." Information is stored in the same way in the case of "Ne (sound)".

The word information output from the memory 13 is output to the word output buffer 16 via the control section 14 and given to the match determining section 8.

A match determination unit 8, which is composed of a gate array or the like that compares character codes bit by bit, determines whether the input word of the key person cover sofa and the word output from the memory 13 are the same, and transmits the determination result to the signal line sl. (mismatch signal)
, 52 (coincidence signal) to the control unit 14.

When the control section 14 receives the mismatch signal via the signal line Sl, it causes the next Japanese word to be output from the next address in the memory 13, and causes the coincidence discriminating section 8 to perform discrimination again.

When the control unit 14 receives a match signal from the match determining unit 8 via the signal line S2, the control unit 14 stores information regarding the same word as the input word, that is, the kana reading code, the kanji code, and the alphabet character code, into the memory 13. and sends it to the output information synthesis section 17 via buffers 31 to 33.

The output information synthesis section 17 forms display information such as a dot matrix to be output to the display 4 using a character generation section 21 consisting of a character generator or the like.

Display information is output to the display 4 via the display control section 19.

Next, the operation of the above configuration will be explained in detail.

5 and 6 show the control procedure of the control section 14 of FIG. 3. In FIGS. 5 and 6, flows with the same number are continuous at that location.

When outputting a translated word from Japanese to English, first, in step S1, the input of desired Japanese (romanization) is accepted using the human key-2.

Next, in step S2, it is determined whether the conversion key IO has been operated. If both steps Sl and S2 are negative, these steps are repeated in order.

When Japanese (ro; akiriki) is input and the conversion key IO is pressed, the input word is searched from the memory 13 in a loop of steps 53 to S5. At this time, as mentioned above, the first address A of the memory 13 to be searched is determined by the search table 9 based on the first character of the kana-converted word stored in the key person cover sofa, and the words are sequentially output from that address. , is compared with the input word of the key Kabasofaf by the match determining unit 8 in step S4. If the output word of the memory 13 and the input word do not match, the read address A of the memory 13 is advanced to the next position in step S5, and the process returns to step S3.

When the same entry word as the human word is found, step S
Proceed to step 6.

In step S6, the kana code is read from the memory 13,
Kanji codes and alphabetic character codes are read out and given to the output information synthesis section 17 via buffers 31 to 33, respectively. The output information synthesis section 17 forms the output information to be displayed as described above and provides it to the display 4 via the 1 display control section 19.

In step S7, the information output from the output information synthesis section 17 is displayed on the display 'Jji4.

In step S8 of FIG. 6, it is determined whether or not a first-order word has been input. When a zero-order word has been input, the process returns to step S1 and the above-described operations are repeated.

On the other hand, if the first word has not been input, step S
Proceeding to step 9, it is determined whether the conversion key IO has been pressed.

If a word for which an English translation exists is input, proceed to step Sl~
Step 8 is repeated, and translated words are output in sequence. However, when a word such as "on" or "ne" that does not have an English translation is input, information in Roman letters is output by processing in steps S1 to 57 (7). Ru. If "ne" is input, "rOTO" is output as shown in FIG.

In this state, when the conversion key 10 is pressed again, in step SIO, the control unit 14 searches the memory 13 using rOTOJ already stored in the buffer 33 as input information. Steps 5ll-513 are steps S3 to S
5 shows a search process similar to that in 5.

When a word matching rOTOJ is found, in step 514 information on the word is output to the output information synthesis unit 17 via the buffers 31 to 33, and in step 315
Displayed in .

As described above, according to this embodiment, when a word such as ``ne'' or ``on'' that does not have an English translation is input, the information of ``oto'' related to it is displayed. rOTOJ is displayed.

If the conversion key IO is pressed again here, the translated word for "oto" can be output. Therefore, the operator can learn the combination of pronunciation and English for the correct translation, and there is no possibility of memorizing mistranslations.

In addition, even if you enter a word that does not have a translation, you can immediately select the word with the correct translation by pressing the conversion key again, making it easy to use even if you only know one kanji reading. Since the desired translation can be retrieved, it provides a device that anyone can easily use.With 0 and above, related words can be output by re-operating the conversion key, but if the operator manually operates the The desired word may be output by inputting Roman letters, or instead of having to operate the conversion key again, another predetermined key may be provided and the related word may be output by pressing this key. .

Furthermore, in the above, the word related to "ne" is output and displayed as "OTO" in Roman letters, but it is of course possible to output it in kana.

Although the embodiment of the Japanese-English dictionary has been described above, it goes without saying that the same structure can also be implemented in applications such as a monolingual dictionary or an encyclopedia.

In the case of a dictionary for each language, synonyms and the like may be stored using the above-mentioned memory storage method, and the synonyms may be referenced from one word.

In the case of an encyclopedia, a combination of one heading and several lines of explanation is stored in memory, but the heading of the word that appears in the explanation and the heading that corresponds to the explanation in which the word in that heading appears are stored in memory. By memorizing the combination, you can immediately refer to the explanation of the purpose.

[Effects of the Invention] As is clear from the above, according to the present invention, in an electronic dictionary that inputs first language information and outputs second language information corresponding to the first language information, If there is no second language information corresponding to the information, a storage means is provided that stores other first language information related to the first language information in combination with the first language information, and the above-mentioned response is provided. If the first language information that does not have the second language information is input, the first language information stored in combination with the first language information is output by referring to the storage means. Therefore, if the second language information corresponding to the first language information does not exist, other corresponding first language information is output, so the search can be performed from this first language information. By doing this, you can extract effective information,
This has excellent effects such as preventing search failure and preventing the operator from learning the wrong combination of linguistic information.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a top view of an electronic dictionary that adopts the present invention, Fig. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing the display state of the display device in Fig. 1, and Fig. 3 is a blow and blow diagram of the control system of the device shown in Fig. 1. 4 are explanatory diagrams showing the storage structure of the memory in FIG. 3, and FIGS. 5 and 6 are flowcharts of the control procedure of the control section in FIG. 3. l... Device body 2... Input key 3... Function key 4... Display 5... Utilization key 6... Encoder 7... Key manual buffer 78... Match determination Department
9...Search table lO...Conversion key 13...
・Memory 14...Control unit 16...Word output buffer 17...Output information synthesis unit 31-33...Buffer (j J:) +14th flow to Yat 1] to 35 diagrams' samurai glance to negative flow child - Hill 6th day

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1) In an electronic dictionary that inputs first linguistic information and outputs second linguistic information corresponding to the first linguistic information, if there is no second linguistic information corresponding to the first linguistic information, the first A storage means is provided which stores other first linguistic information related to the linguistic information in combination with the first linguistic information, and the first linguistic information does not have the corresponding second linguistic information. An electronic dictionary characterized in that when input, the first linguistic information stored in combination with the first linguistic information is outputted by referring to the storage means.