Localized Translation of Keywords

• US 20120271828A1
• Filed: 04/21/2011
• Published: 10/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/21/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Raghunath, Mandayam Thondanur
• Granted Patent: US 8,484,218 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/739
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3337 Translation of the query language, e.g. Chinese to English
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/44 Statistical methods, e.g. probability models

Abstract

In one implementation, a method includes receiving a request for translation of one or more first keywords from a source language to a target language; and translating, using a machine translation process, the first keywords from the source language into a plurality of second keywords in the target language. The method can also include determining, by a computer system, frequencies with which each of the second keywords occur in a corpus associated with the target language. The method can further include selecting, by the computer system, a subset of the second keywords to use in the target language based on the determined frequencies of occurrence.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

translating, using a machine translation process, one or more first keywords from a source language into a plurality of second keywords in a target language;

determining, by a computer system, frequencies with which each of the second keywords occur in a corpus associated with the target language; and

selecting, by the computer system, a subset of the second keywords to use in the target language based on the determined frequencies of occurrence.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising, before determining the frequencies of occurrence, augmenting the second keywords to include additional keywords in the target language that each have at least a threshold association with one or more of the second keywords.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein an additional keyword is determined to have at least a threshold association with one of the second keywords based on the additional keyword and the second keyword being included in one or more pre-determined word cluster of semantically similar keywords.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

before translating the first keywords into the second keywords, grouping the first keywords into one or more first groups of related keywords;

after translating the first keywords into the second keywords, grouping the second keywords into one or more second groups of keywords based on the first groups and the first keywords from which each of the second keyword was translated; and

identifying the one or more pre-determined word clusters for the second keywords based on the second groups of keywords.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein an additional keyword is determined to have at least a threshold association with one of the second keywords based on the additional keyword and the second keyword being identified as synonyms in the target language.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising extracting one or more of the additional keywords from one or more landing pages that are associated with one or more of the second keywords in the target language.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the corpus comprises search logs of search queries associated with the target language.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the determined frequencies are based on search logs for search queries received within a threshold amount of time from a current time.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the corpus comprises one or more corpora used by a search engine, and wherein determining the frequencies includes, at least in part, conducting a search for each of the second keywords using the search engine.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the corpus comprises user-generated content associated with the target language and from one or more social networks.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein selection of the subset of the second keywords includes association of the subset of the second keywords with one or more advertisements in the target language.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising identifying search results associated with the target language with which to provide one or more of the advertisements based on a search query to which the search results correspond including one or more keywords from the subset of the second keywords.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the request further specifies translation of the first keywords into a target language associated with a geographic region;

and

wherein the corpus is associated with the target language and the geographic region.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein each keyword comprises one or more words.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting the corpus associated with the target language based on the received request for translation of the first keywords from the source language to the target language.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the corpus is selected based on a geographic region associated with the target language that is specified by the received request.

17. A system for translation of keywords from a source language to a target language, the system comprising:

one or more computers;

a machine translation module of the computers that is configured to translate one or more first keywords from a source language into a plurality of second keywords in a target language;

a keyword frequency module of the computers that is configured to determine frequencies with which each of the second keywords occur in a corpus associated with the target language; and

a keyword selection component of the computers that is configured to select a subset of the second keywords to use in the target language based on the determined frequencies of occurrence.

18. The system of claim 17, further comprising a keyword augmentation module that is configured to augment the second keywords to include additional keywords in the target language that each have at least a threshold association with one or more of the second keywords.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein an additional keyword is determined to have at least a threshold association with one of the second keywords based on the additional keyword and the second keyword being included in a pre-determined word cluster of semantically similar keywords.

20. An apparatus comprising a computer-readable medium encoding instructions thereon, that in response to execution by a computing device cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

translating, using a machine translation process, one or more first keywords from a source language into a plurality of second keywords in a target language;

determining frequencies with which each of the second keywords occur in a corpus associated with the target language; and

selecting a subset of the second keywords to use in the target language based on the determined frequencies of occurrence.

21. The computer program produce of claim 20, wherein the operations further comprise, before determining the frequencies of occurrence, augmenting the second keywords to include additional keywords in the target language that each have at least a threshold association with one or more of the second keywords.

22. The computer program produce of claim 21, wherein an additional keyword is determined to have at least a threshold association with one of the second keywords based on the additional keyword and the second keyword being included in a pre-determined word cluster of semantically similar keywords.