Method and system for autocompletion for languages having ideographs and phonetic characters

A search engine system for suggesting search query completions for a language having ideographs and phonetic characters, comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• memory storing one or more programs to be executed by the one or more processors, the one or more programs including instructions for:
• receiving a partial search query from a search requestor, the partial search query comprising one or more ideographs followed by a single phonetic character that forms an incomplete phonetic sequence consistent with a first ideograph distinct from the one or more ideographs, and the partial search query comprises a portion of a complete search query, wherein the one or more ideographs of the partial search query include one more Asian language ideographs, and the first ideograph corresponding to the single phonetic character comprises a respective Asian language ideograph;
• and
• automatically, in response to receiving the partial search query from the search requestor, prior to the search requestor signaling completion of a search query and prior to the search requester entering any text beyond the one or more ideographs followed by the single phonetic character:
• in accordance with both the one or more ideographs and the single phonetic character, obtaining a set of predicted complete search queries corresponding to the partial search query from search queries submitted by a community of users, the set of predicted complete search queries ordered in accordance with a ranking criteria, including the search engine making a prediction of the first ideograph, based on the single phonetic character, and obtaining the set of predicted complete search queries corresponding to the one or more ideographs in the partial search query and the predicted first ideograph;
• and
• conveying the set of ordered predicted search queries to the search requestor;
• wherein each search query of the set of the predicted complete search queries includes both the one or more Asian language ideographs of the partial search query and the respective Asian language ideograph consistent with the incomplete phonetic sequence.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or more programs to be executed by one or more processors of a search engine system, the one or more programs including instructions for:

• receiving a partial search query from a search requestor, the partial search query comprising one or more ideographs followed by a single phonetic character that forms an incomplete phonetic sequence consistent with a first ideograph distinct from the one or more ideographs, and the partial search query comprises a portion of a complete search query, wherein the one or more ideographs of the partial search query include one or more Asian language ideographs, and the first ideograph corresponding to the single phonetic character comprises a respective one Asian language ideograph;
• and
• automatically, in response to receiving the partial search query from the search requestor, prior to the search requestor signaling completion of a search query and prior to the search requester entering any text beyond the one or more ideographs followed by the single phonetic character:
• in accordance with both the one or more ideographs and the single phonetic character, obtaining a set of predicted complete search queries corresponding to the partial search query from search queries submitted by a community of users, the set of predicted complete search queries ordered in accordance with a ranking criteria, including the search engine making a prediction of the first ideograph, based on the single phonetic character, and obtaining the set of predicted complete search queries corresponding to the one or more ideographs in the partial search query and the predicted first ideograph;
• and
• conveying the set of ordered predicted search queries to the search requestor;
• wherein each search query of the set of the predicted complete search queries includes both the one or more Asian language ideographs of the partial search query and the respective Asian language ideograph consistent with the incomplete phonetic sequence.

A method for suggesting search query completions for a language having ideographs and phonetic characters, comprising:

• on a search engine having one or more processors and memory storing programs executed by the one or more processors:
• receiving a partial search query from a search requestor, the partial search query comprising one or more ideographs followed by a single phonetic character that forms an incomplete phonetic sequence consistent with a first ideograph distinct from the one or more ideographs, and the partial search query comprises a portion of a complete search query, wherein the one or more ideographs of the partial search query includes one or more Asian language ideographs, and the first ideograph corresponding to the single phonetic character comprises a respective Asian language ideograph;
• and
• automatically, in response to receiving the partial search query from the search requestor, prior to the search requestor signaling completion of a search query and prior to the search requester entering any text beyond the one or more ideographs followed by the single phonetic character:
• in accordance with both the one or more ideographs and the single phonetic character, obtaining a set of predicted complete search queries corresponding to the partial search query from search queries submitted by a community of users, the set of predicted complete search queries ordered in accordance with a ranking criteria, including the search engine:
• obtaining a set of historical search queries previously submitted by the community of users, wherein each of the search queries in the set of historical search queries has a frequency of submission and includes at least one Asian language ideograph;
• mapping strings of one or more Asian language ideographs from the plurality of historical search queries into one or more representations that include a string of one or more phonetic characters;
• and
• generating a plurality of ordered subsets from the identified set of historical search queries, wherein each ordered subset includes one or more historical search queries from the identified set of historical search queries ordered in accordance with the respective frequency of submission, the plurality of ordered subsets including the set of predicted complete search queries;
• and
• conveying the set of ordered predicted search queries to the search requestor;
• wherein each search query of the set of the predicted complete search queries includes both the one or more Asian language ideographs of the partial search query and the respective Asian language ideograph consistent with the incomplete phonetic sequence.