Patent ID: 7315982

Claim:
A method of romanizing Chinese ideograms against an implemented dialect, comprising: receiving a user input selection of an implemented dialect from among a plurality of stored dialects; displaying a matrix of phonetic combinations that excludes phonetic combinations for syllables not present in the implemented dialect; receiving a user input of a phonetic combination selected from the display of the displayed phonetic combinations; defining a first roman alphabet equivalent of the selected phonetic combination; displaying a first Chinese ideogram, the first Chinese ideogram being associated with the selected phonetic combination in the implemented dialect; associating the first roman alphabet equivalent with the first Chinese ideogram; displaying a first question usable to discern the user's dialect; receiving a response from the user; selecting at least a second question based on the user's response to a previous question; displaying the at least the second question usable to discern the user's dialect; receiving at least a second response from the user; determining whether the at least the second or a subsequent response is adequate to determine the user's dialect by analyzing the at least the second response and other information, the other information including at least one prior response; and determining the user's dialect when the responses are adequate.