Patent Document ID: 9711133
Application ID: 14813007

Base Claim:
1. An apparatus for estimating a target character train from a predefined reference character train, said apparatus comprising: a manually operable selector configured to select only from among a limited plurality of kinds of particular phonemes in response to a manual operation of the manually operable selector by a user; and a processor configured to: acquire a reference phoneme train related to the predefined reference character train, the reference phoneme train being indirectly representative of the reference character train via the limited plurality of kinds of particular phonemes; acquire, a target phoneme train designated by a user, a phoneme train time-serially input from said manually operable selector in response to manual operations of the manually operable selector by a user, the target phoneme train being indirectly representative of the target character train via the particular phonemes in the target phoneme train; identify, based on a comparison between the designated target phoneme train and the reference phoneme train, a character sequence in the reference character train that corresponds to a sequence of the particular phonemes in the reference phoneme train matching the designated target phoneme train, wherein the identified character sequence is estimated to be the target character train; and display the identified character sequence on a display or generate a voice based on the identified character sequence to be audibly output from a speaker as an analog waveform signal, the identified character sequence corresponding to phonemes from among more kinds of phonemes than the limited plurality of kinds of particular phonemes only from among which the manually operable selector is configured to select.

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Claim 4:
4. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said processor is further configured to, each time one or more phonemes are input in response to user operations, display, on a display, at least one character having been identified up to a current time point and a next character in the reference character train, estimated from the identified character sequence, as a candidate.