43. A method performed by a multi-lingual information retrieval system for searching a set of documents in a target language when search terms in a source language different from the target language are supplied, said method comprising: translating, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, a search query in the source language into a plurality of search queries in the target language; searching, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, a target language document set in the target language using each of the plurality of target language search queries, to return a plurality of target language documents; translating, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, the plurality of target language documents into corresponding translated documents in the source language; searching, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, a source language document set in the source language using each of a plurality of synonyms of the source language search terms saved in a synonym database, to return a plurality of source language documents; translating, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, the plurality of the source language documents into corresponding translated documents in the target language, maintaining, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, a vote store, wherein for each term having a plurality of translation options, each translation option is associated with a corresponding number of votes and the numbers of votes associated with the translation options are stored in the vote store; and selecting, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, the translation option with the most votes for the term as the primary translation result, wherein remaining translation options for the term are represented in the translated document as one of meta-data or hidden field.
43. A method performed by a multi-lingual information retrieval system for searching a set of documents in a target language when search terms in a source language different from the target language are supplied, said method comprising: translating, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, a search query in the source language into a plurality of search queries in the target language; searching, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, a target language document set in the target language using each of the plurality of target language search queries, to return a plurality of target language documents; translating, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, the plurality of target language documents into corresponding translated documents in the source language; searching, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, a source language document set in the source language using each of a plurality of synonyms of the source language search terms saved in a synonym database, to return a plurality of source language documents; translating, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, the plurality of the source language documents into corresponding translated documents in the target language, maintaining, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, a vote store, wherein for each term having a plurality of translation options, each translation option is associated with a corresponding number of votes and the numbers of votes associated with the translation options are stored in the vote store; and selecting, by the multi-lingual information retrieval system, the translation option with the most votes for the term as the primary translation result, wherein remaining translation options for the term are represented in the translated document as one of meta-data or hidden field. 50. The method of claim 43 , wherein the vote store is accessible to a plurality of users, and when a user specifies that a source language term translates to a target language term, the vote count for the target language term as a translation option of the source language term is incremented.