This invention concerns an electronic dictionary for the electrical translation of words or compound words from one language (source language) into words or compound words of another language (target language); in particular, it concerns the means of input into the electronic dictionary of the words or compound words to be translated.
So-called electronic dictionaries have been commercially available. Such electronic dictionaries require keyboard input, for example, of English words or compound words to be translated, and display on a display unit translated language information including the meanings of the translated words, eg., Japanese words, their pronunciation, or their parts of speech.
FIG. 1 shows a perspective external view of such a conventional electronic dictionary, and FIG. 2 shows a block diagram depicting the internal configuration of such an electronic dictionary. In these diagrams, the English word to be translated is entered in alphabetical characters from keyboard 1 by a finger-pressing action of the operator. The alphabetical characters are fed to retrieval controller 3. Then retrieval controller 3 retrieves the corresponding English word from semantic dictionary 2, and the meaning and other items associated with the Japanese word corresponding to the English word are displayed on display panel 4.
The above electronic dictionary, however, requires keyboard input in alphabetic characters of the words or compound words to be translated, a process liable to input errors due to misreading of keys or misunderstanding, especially when the operator enters the words by looking at the source document and the keyboard alternately. Therefore, each time an input error is made, the word must be reentered by correcting the error. Thus, input has been slow, requiring more than the time it takes to consult an ordinary dictionary. Thus, the conventional electronic dictionaries have been far from being practical, and they have not been able to provide the full benefit of an electronic dictionary.
Further, when translating English words into Japanese, normally the operator has to write on the source document containing the English words so as not to forget the meanings in Japanese words output on the display panel. The procedure has thus been extremely cumbersome.
Further, if the word or compound word to be translated is in a variant form (e.g., the past tense or progressive form of a verb), in most cases the user has to take the trouble to keyboard input the original or canonical form of the word.