Unambiguous phonics system
An unambiguous phonics system (UPS) is capable of presenting text in a format with unambiguous pronunciation. The system can translate input text written in a given language (e.g., English) into a UPS representation of the text written in a UPS alphabet. A unique UPS grapheme can be used to represent each unique grapheme-phoneme combination in the input text. Thus, each letter of the input text is represented in the UPS spelling and each letter of the UPS spelling unambiguously indicates the phoneme used. For all the various grapheme-phoneme combinations for a given input grapheme, the corresponding UPS graphemes can be constructed to have visual similarity with the given input grapheme, thus easing an eventual transition from UPS spelling to traditional spelling. The UPS can include translation, complexity scoring, word/phoneme-grapheme searching, and other module. The UPS can also include techniques to provide efficient, level-based training of the UPS alphabet.
1 . A method, comprising:
receiving input text via an interface on a computing device, wherein the input text comprises a string of original graphemes in an original alphabet, the input text containing a word having letters;
analyzing the provided input text to generate a string of grapheme-phoneme combinations from the string of original graphemes, wherein generating the string of grapheme-phoneme combinations includes:
for each grapheme of the original graphemes, identifying a phoneme,
accessing a phonetic spelling database having a plurality of phonetic spellings associated with a plurality of words to retrieve a phonetic spelling for the word of the input text, the phonetic spelling containing a string of phonemes; and
applying the phonetic spelling to the string of original graphemes to identify a valid grapheme-phoneme spelling for the word, wherein applying the phonetic spelling to the string of original graphemes further includes:
identifying, for each letter of the word, a set of allowable phonemes associated with the letter;
generating one or more valid grapheme-phoneme spellings for the word, wherein generating a valid grapheme-phoneme spelling for the word includes identifying, for each combination of each letter of the word and each phoneme of the string of phonemes, a match between the given phoneme and the set of allowable phonemes associated with the given letter;
outputting a first one of the one or more valid grapheme-phoneme spellings via the input box;
presenting a variation indicator in association with the first one of the one or more valid grapheme-phoneme spellings, wherein the one or more valid grapheme-phoneme spellings includes at least a second one of the one or more valid grapheme-phoneme spellings;
receiving user input indicative of hovering over or clicking the variation indicator, or the first one or the second one of the one or more valid grapheme-phoneme spellings;
selecting in response to receiving the user input, one of the first one or the second one of the one or more valid grapheme-phoneme spellings for use as the valid grapheme-phoneme spelling;
translating the string of grapheme-phoneme combinations into translation text using a translation alphabet, wherein the translation alphabet comprises a unique grapheme for every possible grapheme-phoneme combination of the original alphabet;
wherein analyzing the provided input text via the interface further includes:
analyzing a collection of literary sources to identify occurrence of each phoneme of an alphabet to determine frequency data, where a lower complexity value is assigned to more frequent phoneme and a high complexity value is assigned to extremely rare phonemes, and
assigning the lower complexity value phonemes to visually simpler graphemes and assigning higher complexity value phonemes to visually complex graphemes; and
outputting the translation text based on the determined frequency data.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein
dividing a set of phonemes into different levels, a lowest phoneme level includes a collection of low complexity value phonemes and associated graphemes, where a given phoneme level includes a set of new phoneme-grapheme pairs in addition to the set of phonemes-grapheme pairs of a level below,
learning sequentially the phoneme levels by a user.
3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein
tracking by a learning vocabulary module, a progress of learning the phoneme-grapheme pairs in the given phoneme level by the user,
automatically identifying new graphene-phoneme pairs to be included in the new phoneme level for the user to learn based on the progress result tracked by the learning vocabulary module.
4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein
delivering a digital content written in the translation alphabet to the interface by a digital/print delivery module to output the graphemes of the user's current phoneme level.