i want to create a program that translates a sentance in english to another language

[jerger]

I want to help teach to a minority group in Milwaukee, so I want to create a dictionary program that translates a sentence (like a homework problem or teacher instructions), from English into Hmong.

I have one Idea, and that is to have an English text file of all the A-words, then a Hmong text file of the proper translations. Each text file would have the same amount of lines, with one english word per line, then translated to hmong. Would it be even possible to..

1. user inputs question, "Describe the holocaust"
2. describe is looked in the d text (like if d, search d.txt), then the word is found. then it either compares it to a translation txt (like hmong-d.txt), spitting out the word. then it would prompt to the next word to translate, one line at a time.

A different way was to have 1 giant text file for each letter. like look up "albino", when it finds the word in the a a-dictionary, it searches for the albino string, then finds the comma, then spits out the word/words after the comma. would this be possible as well? which method is easiest for someone that hasn't c++ in a few years?

so far I have a useless code typed up. i just want to start simple getting a-words to work, then get more complex from there. once i have a start i can go with it. please help me, i would love to reach the needs of my esl students who could use this greatly in the US.

summary,i want to take a line of words, compare each word to a specific dictionary, then output one line at a time, the translation. thank you so much!

this code is not correct:

#include <iostream> // I/O
#include <fstream> // file I/O
#include <iomanip> // format manipulation
#include <string>

//This program will hopefully translate english to hmong
using namespace std;
string english; //declare english word to translate
string search; //what to search

int main()
{

cout << "Type the english words here, then press enter. Make sure to copy the words correctly. If you need to spell check use www.google.com" ;
cin >> english;

ifstream myFile;
myFile.open ("c:\\eAh.txt") ;

string* search = english; //search using input
int offset; // where it was found (or not (-1))
if ((offset = line.find(searc h, 0)) != string::npos) {
cout << "found '" << search << "' @ offset " << offset << endl;
}

return 0;
}

[weaknessforcats]

I presume you would load/store your map from/to a disc file. 5000 inserts is nothing. It's just a loop.

Your overhead woul be maintaining the disc file.

If course, you could improve beyond what I did but I was just demonstrating one technique.

A fancy engine may be as large as the one Google uses.

You might want to read up on localization techniques that software companies use to provide the screen displays in different languages depending upon the locale where the product is bought. I know of onwe company that does this using an Access database.

An speaking of databases: Have you considered a SQL database??

You could spend your time design tables rather than writing C++ code.

[jerger]

well thats over my head, so that isn't really a possibility right now lol. i am familiar with c++ and manipulating code to work...

my goal now is to find a way to repeat one of my two working programs, so it takes a sentance, pulls out a word, translates it, then moves onto the next sentance. maybe i need to find a way to change the location of the string... where its pointing to with my sub string...

like first word up to space... then translate

then start at space, go to next space....

i'm not sure

[weaknessforcats]

If you decide to go that way and tokensize your strings by pulling out words, seriously look at the design pattern called State.

I can provide a word parsing example, if necessary, using this pattern and the C++ STL.

[jerger]

i'll have to learn that first.

my first goal is to find some way to make either of the two programs above, translate a second or third word... rather then simply crash

anyone have a suggestion? i need a loop of some sort but mine crash or only print one word... what needs to be done is the strong needs to be like this

"a b c"

then "b c"
then "c"
then stop when find pause or end line (is it posible to find endl? as a reason to sotp a loop?)

[jerger]

my subtract code was not working...

any ideas on how to input a string (sentance), then make a tempstring that holds the word... then translates... then goes back and moves onto the next word?

i was thinking to subtract the string to a temp location, then store that location, then go through and analyze temp... then start over again at the pointer. but when i do this it only analyzes the first word (see my above 2 examples)

any help would greatly be appreciated. the other database examples are good ideas but i am clueless, so i would not be able to program it myself. thanks !

[ahammad]

I haven't read through the whole thread, so I don't know how far you are.

Anyway, I just finished writing code for a parsing/storing program. It reads in lines from a file, and separates the string into two parts at a specified character (an equals sign in my case). The program then stores the two parts into a CMapStringToStr ing object, which works just like an array, except you use strings instead of integers as the index.

That way, you can type the index (or key), in your case the word, and retrieve the data at the location of the index, in your case the definition.

The program itself is short (>100 lines), but you really need to research various aspects of C++.

Just one way of implementing your translation program. IMO it's a clean way to do it with not a lot of coding.

[jerger]

could you post any helpful code here? i am trying various stuff... the thing is, how could i get it to store more then a few words?

could i brake it into arrays based on the dashes? i'm not sure, maybe i could find all the pointers (spacers and periods/question marks) then store each part into a different variable, by storing the certain parts of the array into it? like from array0-first space, then first space - next space,

not sure.

[ahammad]

could you post any helpful code here? i am trying various stuff... the thing is, how could i get it to store more then a few words?

could i brake it into arrays based on the dashes? i'm not sure, maybe i could find all the pointers (spacers and periods/question marks) then store each part into a different variable, by storing the certain parts of the array into it? like from array0-first space, then first space - next space,

not sure.

Just so I know what snippets to post here, do you have an algorithm that can read in lines, and separate the line into two parts (the word and the definition)?

Also, which compiler are you currently using?

[rcmatt4321]

Doesent Google Have An API for this? If so you could have it interface with that in someway or another and not even have to do all the tranlation work.

Just Wondering,
Matt

[jerger]

i have my code posted above (2 different ways, one using a textfile for words and translations, and another that has the words in the code), using dev c++

what i have is... read in a line, look in the dictionary and it works. FOR ONE WORD. what does not work is multiple words that are not in order. one program will find the first word, then crash on the second. the other, find the first word, then prints the words that follow the definition in the dictionary. so if you type in "house rules" it would spit out house = ma, houses= ma (rather then house = ma, rules = blah blah)

idealy i would like to store the string, and pull out the words one at a time using the spaces as pointers. is it possible to find all the spaces, store them somewhere, then search each round through using my code, based off the pointers for each word? then end when a period or nothing is found?



hmm... is the google code open source? where can i find the actual code?