Patent ID: 7505893

Claim:
A dialogue supporting apparatus which supports a dialogue carried out in different languages, said dialogue supporting apparatus comprising: an input accepting unit operable to accept an utterance of a user as an input; a translation processing unit operable to translate the accepted utterance into a predetermined language, and to output translated utterance information which is acquired through the translation; an output notification unit operable to notify the outputted translated utterance information to a user; and an output time determination unit operable to: hold a characteristics table showing plural items of characteristic information and plural items of adjustment information in association with each other; analyze whether or not the characteristic information is included in the utterance of the user by referring to the characteristics table; and determine an output time for translation of an utterance which is to be accepted subsequently, each of the plural items of characteristic information being information representing a preset characteristic of an utterance, and each of the plural items of adjustment information being information for adjusting an output time for translation of an utterance which is a response to an utterance including the characteristic information, according to a characteristic of the utterance including the characteristic information.