Method and apparatus for interactive source language expression recognition and alternative hypothesis presentation and selection

In a language translation system, a method for providing a guide for a user, comprising:

• receiving an input that is representative of at least one word in a source language;
• generating at least one recognition hypothesis in the source language in response to the input;
• generating at least one recognition hypothesis in a target language in response to the input;
• presenting the at least one recognition hypothesis in the source language and the at least one recognition hypothesis in a target language as a list of pairs ordered according to likelihood of being correct;
• accepting a choice of one pair of the list of pairs from a user, wherein a chosen pair comprises a best hypothesis in the source language and a best hypothesis in the target language;
• indicating a portion of the best hypothesis in the source language to the user, wherein the portion has at least one alternative expression;
• presenting the at least one alternative expression to the user;
• accepting a choice of one of the at least one alternative expressions;
• and
• presenting the best hypothesis, including the chosen alternative, to the user in the source language;
• and
• presenting the best hypothesis, including the chosen alternative, to the user in the target language.

In a language translation system, an interactive method for translating a group of words, comprising:

• receiving an input that represents the group of words in a source language;
• displaying at least one candidate hypothesis to the user, wherein the at least one candidate hypothesis comprises:
• a source language representation of the group of words in the source language that is based upon a translation module's understanding of the input;
• a target language representation of the group of words in a target language that is based upon the translation module's interpretation of the source language representation;
• and
• a source language representation of a back-translation of the target language representation of the group of words.

A computer readable medium containing executable instructions which, when executed in a processing system, cause the system to perform a method for performing language translation, the method comprising:

• receiving an input that is representative of at least one word in a source language;
• generating at least one recognition hypothesis in the source language in response to the input;
• selecting a best hypothesis from the at least one recognition hypothesis in the source language;
• presenting the best hypothesis in the source language to a user;
• presenting alternatives to a portion of the best hypothesis in the source language to the user;
• receiving an indication of a choice of one of the alternatives from the user;
• and
• presenting a revised version of the best hypothesis including the alternative chosen to the user.