Subject: Sound Input for Chinese OS on Mac

From: Huangxin Wang <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 May 90 18:09:58 EDT

I wonder what's the qualification about the sound input method for Chinese,
as discussed on the net.  I think there are two cases:  (1) computer is able
to choice the character by recognizing the voice, and through context.  This,
I think is pretty difficult, though my impression is most discussions are
on this aspect.   (2)  Computer recognizes the voice, then list all the
possible charcters corresponding to this voice.  The user will make the final
choice about which charcter is the right one.   This kind is quite similar
to the Chinese OS on Mac:  you type in the pin-yin, even part of it,  the
computer will list all the possiblity corresponding to that part (or whole
word) of pin-yin.  Say, even when you type in a "f" you will get a list.

        My conjecture is that for the current technology, it should not
be too difficult to achieve the second case.  Is a voice recognition device
able to tell the difference between "fa" and "pa"?  The list corresponding
to the sound may be more strict, or more liberal, say, it may or may not
distinguish the tones, or "s" and "sh",  "ng" and "n", etc.  Since
on Mac Chinese OS, one can mixing the input methods of pin-yin and bi3-hua4,
then voice might be another method which can be used to mix with other common
input methods to accelerate the input.

        Do I under-estimate the difficulties of the second case?  Or are
there anything available already?   I see the Mac a more suitable machine
for this method, since its liberal input method make it very natural to extend
to this kind of voice recognization.

                Huangxin Wang of University of Pennsylvania

---

From: Ed Lai <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 May 90 07:18:24 -0700

I agree that two next step to take in using voice input technology is to use
it as a keyboard replacement (when you say "pin", p i n is typed) and not
complete translation to Chinese. This is certainly doable today. The Mac is
probably not any better than other machine in this aspect. The concept of the
Chinese Mac is probably closer in spirit to such a scheme. The example given
in the pinyin input in the Chinese Mac would not contribute directly to voice
input. However, the very concept that when you typing in a character, you are
not trying to encode the Chinese character, but rather you are trying to narrow
down the range of possible character, is an important concept for the new
technology. Actually we have far more to learn from Chinese mac's stroke input
method than pinyin input method which is relevant here. The stroke input method
would prefer you to type in the strokes in the order they are normally written,
but if that is wrong (either because the order is wrong, some stroke is wrong,
some is missing or extra), it still try its best to guest what you mean.
If we translate the concept back to a pinyin input method. What it means is
this: today the best pinyin input can only do something like this, if you
type pinyin (with tones optional), it give you the phrase and save you from
choosing from numerous homonyms. But if you type "pinyn" or "pinying" you
could not get the right phrase in any existing pinyin input method. When
such input method exists, we are very clode to our goal.

/* Disclaimer: All statments and opinions expressed are my own */
/* Edmund K. Lai                                               */
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