Converting Hindi Text to English Text

Question

Hi,

Can someone guide me in converting hindi text to english text using c#.  The application will be windows based.  When I googled it says it will be possible using google/translate.  However I am not aware of how to use that in my application.

Any ideas?

Regards,
Karthizen

Answer 1

this will probably get you started.

Answer 2

Hi Ray,

Thank you for your reply.  Let me have a look at it & update you on this.

Regards,
Karthik

Answer 3

Well,  I need to transliterate and not translate the text typed in Hindi.  The link given by Ray will be useful for translation.

Is there any APIs available for transliteration? 


Regards,
Karthik

Answer 4

I have asked one of my friends, he said for each combination of Hindi letter, we need to create a Hashmap with respective combination of English letters. And then to create a function which will read the complete Hindi text and refer to the hashmap and then transliterate one letter at a time.

Well, how to create a hashmap?

Answer 5

Hi Karthizen,

Based on my understanding, you want to directly convert a hindi character to an english character(characters). You said that we can build a map to do that. Yes, this is a good idea. We can define a static dictionary to store the mapping and then use it to transliterate. This is the code snippet:
A static class provide some transliterate methods:

    public static class CharacterTransliterate
    {
        //The dictionary used to store the character map:
        //'hindi_character -> english_character' pairs
        private static Dictionary<char, string> _transDic = null;

        //Get the character map.
        public static Dictionary<char, string> TransDic
        {
            get
            {
                if (_transDic == null)
                {
                    _transDic = new Dictionary<char, string>();
                    //Add some pairs.
                    _transDic.Add('अ', "A");
                    _transDic.Add('आ', "Aa");
                    _transDic.Add('इ', "I");
                    _transDic.Add('ई', "Ee");
                    //Not finished.
                    //Add other 'hindi_character -> english_character' pair here
                }
                return _transDic;
            }
        }
        //Convert a hindi character to english character.
        public static string GetEnglishCharacter(char hindiCharacter)
        {
            return TransDic[hindiCharacter];
        }

        //Convert a hindi character to english character.
        public static string GetEnglishString(string hindiString)
        {
            //Traverse the characters and convert each character, then connect them to a string.
            StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
            foreach (char character in hindiString)
            {
                if (TransDic.ContainsKey(character))
                    builder.Append(TransDic[character]);
                else
                    builder.Append(character);
            }
            return builder.ToString();
        }
    }

A example shows how to use the static class:

        private void button3_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            //Convert hindi string to a english string.
            this.richTextBox1.Text = CharacterTransliterate.GetEnglishString(this.richTextBox1.Text);
        }

You can get more information about hindi-english mapping from these links:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~wjsn/hindi.htm 
http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0900.pdf 
http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/devanagari.html

Let me know if this helps.
Aland Li 

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Answer 6

Hi Anand Li,

Thats works very well.  Let me add the other character set & Update on further outcome.

Thank you so much,

Regards,
karthik

Answer 7

Hi Karthizen,

You are welcome.

Regards,
Aland Li

---

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Answer 8

please edit this code so that i can use the same to convert english to hindi

Answer 9

how i convert english to hindi

Answer 10

Hi Karthizen,

Based on my understanding, you want to directly convert a hindi character to an english character(characters). You said that we can build a map to do that. Yes, this is a good idea. We can define a static dictionary to store the mapping and then use it to transliterate. This is the code snippet:
A static class provide some transliterate methods:

 public static class CharacterTransliterate
 {
  //The dictionary used to store the character map:
  //'hindi_character -> english_character' pairs
  private static Dictionary<char, string> _transDic = null;

  //Get the character map.
  public static Dictionary<char, string> TransDic
  {
   get
   {
    if (_transDic == null)
    {
     _transDic = new Dictionary<char, string>();
     //Add some pairs.
     _transDic.Add('अ', "A");
     _transDic.Add('आ', "Aa");
     _transDic.Add('इ', "I");
     _transDic.Add('ई', "Ee");
     //Not finished.
     //Add other 'hindi_character -> english_character' pair here
    }
    return _transDic;
   }
  }
  //Convert a hindi character to english character.
  public static string GetEnglishCharacter(char hindiCharacter)
  {
   return TransDic[hindiCharacter];
  }

  //Convert a hindi character to english character.
  public static string GetEnglishString(string hindiString)
  {
   //Traverse the characters and convert each character, then connect them to a string.
   StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
   foreach (char character in hindiString)
   {
    if (TransDic.ContainsKey(character))
     builder.Append(TransDic[character]);
    else
     builder.Append(character);
   }
   return builder.ToString();
  }
 }

A example shows how to use the static class:

  private void button3_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
  {
   //Convert hindi string to a english string.
   this.richTextBox1.Text = CharacterTransliterate.GetEnglishString(this.richTextBox1.Text);
  }

You can get more information about hindi-english mapping from these links:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~wjsn/hindi.htm 
http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0900.pdf 
http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/devanagari.html

Let me know if this helps.
Aland Li 

---

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hey anand li,

you code was quite a help for me,can you please explain how would you add special hindi characters to your language mapping and append them while you covert the word/sentence ....

thanks...

help would be appreciated

this is my code:

public class Class1
    {
        Dictionary<string, string> _convert = new Dictionary<string, string>();
        public Class1()
        {
            _convert.Add("a", "\u0904");
            _convert.Add("A", "\u0905");
            _convert.Add("aa", "\u0906");
            _convert.Add("i", "\u0907");
            _convert.Add("ii", "\u0908");
            _convert.Add("u", "\u0909");
            _convert.Add("uu", "\u090A");
            _convert.Add("r", "\u090B");
            _convert.Add("L", "\u090C");
            _convert.Add("E", "\u090D");
            _convert.Add("e", "\u090E");
            //_convert.Add("E", "\u090F");
            _convert.Add("ai", "\u0910");
            //_convert.Add("O", "\u0911");
            _convert.Add("o", "\u0912");
            //_convert.Add("O", "\u0913");
            _convert.Add("au", "\u0914");
            _convert.Add("ka", "\u0915");
            _convert.Add("kh", "\u0916");
            _convert.Add("ga", "\u0917");
            _convert.Add("gha", "\u0918");
            _convert.Add("nga", "\u0919");
            _convert.Add("ca", "\u091A");
            _convert.Add("cha", "\u091B");
            _convert.Add("ja", "\u091C");
            _convert.Add("jha", "\u091D");
            _convert.Add("nya", "\u091E");
            _convert.Add("tta", "\u091F");
            _convert.Add("ttha", "\u0920");
            _convert.Add("dda", "\u0921");
            _convert.Add("ddha", "\u0922");
            _convert.Add("nna", "\u0923");
            _convert.Add("ta", "\u0924");
            _convert.Add("tha", "\u0925");
            _convert.Add("da", "\u0926");
            _convert.Add("dha", "\u0927");
            _convert.Add("na", "\u0928");
            _convert.Add("nnna", "\u0921");
            _convert.Add("pa", "\u092A");
            _convert.Add("pha", "\u092B");
            _convert.Add("ba", "\u092C");
            _convert.Add("bha", "\u092D");
            _convert.Add("ma", "\u092E");
            _convert.Add("ya", "\u092F");
            _convert.Add("ra", "\u0930");
            _convert.Add("rra", "\u0931");
            _convert.Add("la", "\u0932");
            _convert.Add("lla", "\u0933");
            _convert.Add("llla", "\u0934");
            _convert.Add("va", "\u0935");
            _convert.Add("sha", "\u0936");
            _convert.Add("ssa", "\u0937");
            _convert.Add("sa", "\u0938");
            _convert.Add("ha", "\u0939");
            _convert.Add("AA", "\u093E");
            _convert.Add("I", "\u093F");
            _convert.Add("II", "\u0940");
            _convert.Add("U", "\u0941");
            _convert.Add("UU", "\u0942");
            _convert.Add("R", "\u0943");
            _convert.Add("RR", "\u0944");
            _convert.Add("AI", "\u0945");
            _convert.Add("0", "\u0966");
            _convert.Add("1", "\u0967");
            _convert.Add("2", "\u0968");
            _convert.Add("3", "\u0969");
            _convert.Add("4", "\u096A");
            _convert.Add("5", "\u096B");
            _convert.Add("6", "\u096C");
            _convert.Add("7", "\u096D");
            _convert.Add("8", "\u096E");
            _convert.Add("9", "\u096F");
       
        }
       

        public string dic(string a)
        {
                     
                foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> kvp in _convert)
            {
                if (String.Compare(kvp.Key,a)==0)
                {
                    return kvp.Value;
                }
               
            }
            return " ";
        }




    }

//Calling

public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
       
       
       
            Class1 x = new Class1();
           
       
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            this.textBox1.AcceptsReturn = true;
            this.textBox1.AcceptsTab = true;
            this.textBox1.Multiline = true;
            this.textBox1.ScrollBars = System.Windows.Forms.ScrollBars.Vertical;



            label1.Text = textBox1.Text.Length.ToString() ;
           
           

                this.textBox2.Text = x.dic(textBox1.Text);
           
           
        }