Patent ID: 8311799

Claim:
A translation device comprising: a memory that stores character strings forming an example sentence pattern under which example sentences are classified based on character strings that form the example sentences, and character strings forming a translated example sentence pattern translated from the example sentence pattern, the character strings forming the example sentence pattern being associated with the character strings forming the translated example sentence pattern based on meanings of the character strings; a converting unit that converts, using a first weight indicator that indicates a degree of difference in meaning between character strings forming an input sentence to be translated and character strings forming the example sentence pattern stored in the memory as a weight, the input sentence into a sentence including common portions corresponding to common character strings shared by the example sentences classified under the example sentence pattern, and uncommon portions that are not the common portions, the uncommon portions being variable portions formed by combining words of the input sentence, and the common portions being fixed words that are the same as words of the input sentence; a calculating unit that calculates a distance indicator that indicates a degree of difference between the input sentence and the example sentence pattern as a distance based on a rule to associate the uncommon portions of the sentence converted by the converting unit with uncommon character strings other than common character strings of the example sentence pattern, and on a second weight indicator that indicates the weight difference between the uncommon portions and the uncommon character strings; an extracting unit that extracts the example sentence pattern, under which the input sentence is classified, based on the distance indicator calculated by the calculating unit, and associates the uncommon portions of the sentence converted by the converting unit with the uncommon character strings of the example sentence pattern extracted by the extracting unit; and a translating unit that translates the input sentence based on a mapping that associates uncommon portions of the input sentence with the character strings forming the translated example sentence pattern that is stored in the memory and is associated with the uncommon character strings of the example sentence pattern extracted by the extracting unit.