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G-nerd

Wed Nov 24, 2010 6:46 am


Translating an english sentence to spanish using a given database

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Hi I need help trying to translate an English sentence to Spanish using a database given and also making the user continue to ask an English sentence until asked to be terminated using a given character.

Here is my code

[code]

import string

db = [['dog', 'perro'], ['man', 'hombre'], ['woman', 'mujer'], ['house', 'casa'], ['eat',
'comer'], ['speak', 'hablar'], ['walk', 'caminar'], ['black', 'negro'], ['white', 'blanco'],
['large', 'grande'], ['fat', 'gordo'], ['skinny', 'flaca'], ['street', 'calle'], ['from', 'de'],
['to', 'a'], ['in', 'en'], ['the', 'el']]



def toSpanish2(x):


    for i in range(len(string.split(x)):    # for all the elements in x after converting the string to lists
        for j in range(len(db)):              # for all the elements in db
              if string.split(x)[i]==db[j]:   # if any element of x is equivalent to any element in the database
                    if db[j][0]==string.split(x)[i]:  # if the 0th element = and element of i
                            return db[j][1]               # return the 1st element in the list of db
              if x == "null":                        # if x equals null   
                   Break                          #then terminate the program
        return string.join(x)    #if one of the conditions are met, return the string that was converted into list form back into regular string form
x=raw_input("Please type an English Sentence:") # Make user ask for english sentence to be converted

[/code]
When I run the code on python it first asks me to type in a sentence, which I do, but using strings so that in can be converted to a list. However, once the english sentence has been implemented, nothing comes out. Can someone show me what the error is.

My friend has a different code but I can't understand it. He says it works but not properly. I don't understand how he came up with the x.split().

[code]

import string
x=raw_input(" Please type an English sentence: ")
db = [['dog', 'perro'], ['man', 'hombre'], ['woman', 'mujer'], ['house', 'casa'], ['eat',
'comer'], ['speak', 'hablar'], ['walk', 'caminar'], ['black', 'negro'], ['white', 'blanco'],
['large', 'grande'], ['fat', 'gordo'], ['skinny', 'flaca'], ['street', 'calle'], ['from', 'de'],
['to', 'a'], ['in', 'en'], ['the', 'el']]

def toSpanish2(x):
    sum=[]
    for i in range (len(x.split())):
        for j in range(len(db)):
           if (x.split())[i] in db[j][0]:
                db[j][0]=db[j][1]
                sum.append(db[j][0])
    return " ".join(sum)
[/code]

when he types : " the fat man fat"
it just produces el gordo hombre
it should say el gordo hombre gordo



Please any help would be gladly appreciated.


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Tony

Thu Nov 25, 2010 12:59 am


RE:Translating an english sentence to spanish using a given database

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> Can someone show me what the error is. 

If the Python interpreter does not give you warnings/errors, then there isn't one and the code is doing exactly what you told it to do. That might be different from what you thought about though ;) Try to figure out what your code is doing and how it's different from what you thought it was doing. A common technique is to use print statements to output program's state as it runs, and comparing that against your expectations.

> I don't understand how he came up with the x.split(). 

x is an argument which receives a string object. String objects have a number of methods defined, including #split()

http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#str.split


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kctan

Tue Nov 30, 2010 12:39 am


Re: Translating an english sentence to spanish using a given database

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Make some small change to your friend's code. If you need more explanation, let me know. 

[code]import string
x=raw_input(" Please type an English sentence: ")
db = [['dog', 'perro'], ['man', 'hombre'], ['woman', 'mujer'], ['house', 'casa'], ['eat',
'comer'], ['speak', 'hablar'], ['walk', 'caminar'], ['black', 'negro'], ['white', 'blanco'],
['large', 'grande'], ['fat', 'gordo'], ['skinny', 'flaca'], ['street', 'calle'], ['from', 'de'],
['to', 'a'], ['in', 'en'], ['the', 'el']]

def toSpanish2(x):
    sum=[]
    for i in range (len(x.split())):
        for j in range(len(db)):
           if (x.split())[i] in db[j][0]:
                sum.append(db[j][1])
                break
    return " ".join(sum)

print toSpanish2(x)[/code]


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wtd

Tue Nov 30, 2010 1:44 am


Re: Translating an english sentence to spanish using a given database

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First off, let's convert your db to a dictionary.

[code]db = [['dog', 'perro'], ['man', 'hombre'], ['woman', 'mujer'], ['house', 'casa'], ['eat', 
'comer'], ['speak', 'hablar'], ['walk', 'caminar'], ['black', 'negro'], ['white', 'blanco'], 
['large', 'grande'], ['fat', 'gordo'], ['skinny', 'flaca'], ['street', 'calle'], ['from', 'de'], 
['to', 'a'], ['in', 'en'], ['the', 'el']] 

words = dict(db)[/code]

Now, let's get a list of the words in an input sentence:

[code]sentence_words = sentence.split(" ")[/code]

Now, let's get a new list of translated words.

[code]sentence_words_translated = [words[w] for w in sentence_words][/code]

Now, let's use a generator expression passed to join to get the new sentence.

[code]new_sentence = " ".join(words[w] for w in sentence_words)[/code]

Isn't that much nicer than this explicit looping and list of lists malarky?


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kctan

Tue Nov 30, 2010 3:32 am


Re: Translating an english sentence to spanish using a given database

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Isn't that much nicer than this explicit looping and list of lists malarky?

I think it depends. For someone who is not familiar with list comprehension, your solution may not be easy to understand.


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wtd

Tue Nov 30, 2010 11:00 am


RE:Translating an english sentence to spanish using a given database

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Then that person would be well-advised to learn about list comprehensions and generators.

Python is not Tring with different syntax, after all.