Hello,

I had an idea for a program but I know very little so I would like some help.

Basically I want a program that will take a piece of text and translate it. I am trying to fix the English language so that words are spelled the way they are pronounced and I would like a program that translates words into my spelling style. What would be the best way to go about this?

Thanks,

Mel

That's an interesting idea. However, I do not believe that there is any simple way to solve this problem, for the following reasons:

1. You are expecting a computer to know how to pronounce each word in the dictionary. You will have to compile a database of 'phonetic spelling' of each word and have your program query the database to find the phonetic spelling. If you have any such database in mind, explain and then we might be able to suggest what options you have.

2. If you don't have a database, then you're going to have a hard time compiling one, even if you restrict the database to a limited vocabulary. If you look at any dictionary, you will see that the pronunciations given are not strictly in English letters. See here: dictionary - Wiktionary The pronunciation have been given as /ˈdɪkʃən(ə)ɹi/. This of course is an attempt to give all possible sounds a symbol. Since English is not phonetic, you cannot spell water as wotar, woter or wohta. Also, sounds like the o of 'snore' is different from the the o for 'from'. There is not alternative letter.

If you have already thought this out, then you should explain. Otherwise it would be hard for anyone to give any suggestions.

Umang

I see what you mean, it would be hard to train the computer to look for a particular sound. How about this, I make a dictionary with my new phonetic versions of english words and the original english word linked to each other somehow. I will start with the 1000 most commonly used words and expand from there. Could I then make a program that takes a piece of normal english text and goes to my database to find its counterpart and then translates it into the phonetic version that is right next to it in the database?

If you are curious about how I plan to do the phonetic versions, I will post what I have so far. This is still very rough, so feel free to take a look and see if it can be improved in any way!

PLAAN INXGLISH! (Plain English)

PROPOSAL: To make English words spelled the way they sound.

WHY? Because the way English is spelled now doesn't make sense, it's confusing, and it's harder to learn than it could be. Some people have trouble learning how to read because of how English is written - there are people who never learn for this reason!

RULES: -No new symbols, only normal letters.
-Each letter starts with only one basic sound.
-New sounds are made by adding special action letters.


Letters and pronunciations: Here are the new way the letters will be used and a few examples. A lone English word means the letter is used as normal in that situation.

A - cat, fake=faak, weight=waat, etc.
B - but
C - vowel action letter, changes sound of vowel that comes before it, air=acr, white=wict
D - dud
E - pen, ski=skee
F - fat, graph=graf
G - go, NOT gee
H - hello
I - win, wine=wiin
J - jump, fudge=fuj
K - tuck=tuk, much=mukx (see x)
L - lid, well=wel
M - mom, damn=dam
N - no, knee=nee, ring=rinx (see x)
O - tone=toon, own=oon, out=oct
P - put, NOT graph
Q - new vowel! wood=wqd, pull=pql
R - rat
S - step, shut=sxut (see x)
T - top, the=txe
U - but, boot=buut
V - vat
W - wet
X - consonant action letter, changes the sound of the consonant that came before it, much=mukx, shut=sxut, the=txe, ring=rinx
Y - yes, cute=kyuut
Z - zit, is=iz

SAMPLE TEXT: Ookaa! Let'z taak it oct foor a test spin! Uu maa bee sqrpriizd hoc eezee it iz tuu lqrn tuu reed txis kiind uv rictinx! Moost peepql oonlee taak a fyuu sekindz!

Soo, txis iz mii baasik iideeu. Enee advics?

Melee Dee

Sorry, I was a bit unclear about my needs. What I would do is make two lists, one of common english words, and another of their corresponding phonetic version. Then I would have a program that takes a piece of english text, and translates each word to its phonetic versions. New words not yet in the lists would be added to a third list for later translation.

I can do the phonetic part myself, but I am not sure how to do the program. Can anyone offer any advice?

What language are you going to do this in and are you familiar with databases?

I am not sure what language I should do it in. I am open to suggestion I will say though that I have started to teach myself Python, if that would do the trick.
I know a little bit about what databases are. I have fooled around with Access for a few minutes, just to see how it works.

Try learning some SQL commands first (try them on MS Access if that's more convenient). I've used sqlite in the past, but I suggest that you look through DatabaseInterfaces - PythonInfo Wiki to choose. Since you are only learning at the moment, I'd suggest to complete learning the basics and then see what you can do after that. We're always there to help.

try using "perl"
its original purpose was this sort of thing, make it read the file as arrays of characters, then iterate through them createing a new string from it which has your version.
e.g

pm me for any help with perl

Really? That's code?? Looks like English to me! I will check Perl out, thanks!

I did a quick search and the Perl website says that Perl is included in Mac OS X, which I am currently running. The website says to open up the command line...anyone mind telling me where the command line is? I know...I'm a nube