Patent ID: 8239188

Claim:
A translation apparatus comprising: a bilingual example sentence dictionary that stores a first plurality of example sentences in a first language and a second plurality of example sentences in a second language that are translations of the first plurality of example sentences; a hash value index portion that stores a first plurality of first hash values that are hash values of the first plurality of example sentences computed from encoding the first plurality of example sentences and applying a hash function to the encoded first plurality of example sentences; an N-gram index portion that stores an N-gram TRIE structure comprising a first plurality of N-gram strings, where N-is a natural number, that are N-gram strings of the first plurality of example sentences; an input unit that receives a first input sentence in the first language as an input; a first search unit that generates a hash value of the first input sentence using the hash function, determines whether there exists a matching hash value among the first plurality of hash values that matches the hash value of the first input sentence, determines a first example sentence among the first plurality of example sentences having the matching first hash value, and determines whether the first example sentence matches the first input sentence; a second search unit that generates an N-gram string of the first input sentence, counts a number of N-grams of the N-gram string of the first input sentence that match N-grams among each of the first plurality of N-gram strings, determines similarities between the first input sentence and candidate example sentences among the first plurality of example sentences based on the number of N-grams of the N-gram string of the first input sentence that match the N-grams among each of the first plurality of N-gram strings, and determines a first example sentence candidate among the candidate example sentences that most similarly matches the first input sentence based on the determined similarities, in response to the first search unit determining that the first example sentence does not exist; and an output unit that outputs one of a first translated sentence among the second plurality of example sentences in the second language that is a translation of the first example sentence determined by the first search unit and the first example sentence candidate determined by the second search unit.