Determining language of text fragments

• US 8,832,188 B1
• Filed: 12/23/2010
• Issued: 09/09/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Cierniak, Michal
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Dhairya A
• Application Number:
  US12/977,334
• Time in Patent Office: 1,356 Days
• Field of Search: 709/201, 709/202, 709/204, 709/205, 704/8, 704/9, 704/10
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for receiving content data, the content data comprising text, identifying an author of the text, the author being a user of a social networking service, retrieving data corresponding to one or more social graphs associated with the user, the data being stored in a computer-readable storage device, and determining the language of the text based on the data corresponding to the one or more social graphs associated with the author.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising;

receiving content data, the content data comprising text;

responsive to determining that the content data is insufficient to accurately determine a natural language in which the text is written by determining that a number of characters of the text is less than a threshold number;

identifying an author of the text, the author being a first user of a social networking service;

retrieving social graph data corresponding to one or more social graphs associated with the first user, the social graph data being stored in a computer-readable storage device, the social graph data including a first set of language statistics and a second set of language statistics based on posts respectively authored by a second user and a third user that connect with the first user within the social networking service;

determining aggregate statistics from the first and second sets of language statistics based on a strength of relationship between the first and second users and a strength of relationship between the first and third users; and

determining the natural language that the text is written in as one of a plurality of potential natural languages based on the aggregate statistics included in the social graph data corresponding to the one or more social graphs associated with the author.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the social graph data comprises language statistics regarding posts that the first user has authored using the social networking service.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise weighing the first and second sets of language statistics based on the strength of relationship between the first and second users and the strength of relationship between the first and third users, and wherein determining the aggregate statistics is based on weighing the first and second sets of language statistics.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the social graph data comprises language statistics regarding posts authored by one or more non-contact users, each of the one or more non-contact users having commented on at least one post authored by the first user within the social networking service.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

generating language data based on the natural language;

transmitting the language data and the content data to a remote computing device; and

receiving updated language data, the updated language data having been generated at the remote computing device based on the language data and the content data.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the updated language data corresponds to the natural language determined based on the social graph data corresponding to the one or more social graphs.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the updated language data corresponds to another natural language that is different from the natural language determined based on the social graph data corresponding to the one or more social graphs.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise associating the content data with the natural language.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein associating the content data with the natural language comprises populating language data of a data set with data indicative of the natural language, the data set comprising at least the content data and the language data.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the content data is provided in a data set that is received at a computing device associated with the first user.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the data set is a post data set that is generated in response to a post in the social networking service that is published by the first user.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the social graph data comprises at least one of:

distances between the first user and other users within one or more social networking services;

language statistics based on posts authored by the first user within the one or more social networking services;

language statistics based on posts authored by contacts of the first user within the one or more social networking services; and

language statistics based on comments authored by non-contact commentators who are also users of the one or more social networking services.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

indicating the natural language as a preliminary language;

transmitting the content data and the natural language as inputs for a language analysis; and

receiving a notification based on the language analysis.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the notification comprises an indication that the preliminary language is incorrect.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise receiving a post data set, the post data set comprising the content data and user data, and wherein identifying the author of the text is based on the user data.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more social graphs are generated based on relationships between the first user and other users of the social networking service.

17. A non-transitory computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the computer program comprising instructions that when executed by data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

receiving content data, the content data comprising text;

responsive to determining that the content data is insufficient to accurately determine a natural language in which the text is written by determining that a number of characters of the text is less than a threshold number;

identifying an author of the text, the author being a first user of a social networking service;

retrieving social graph data corresponding to one or more social graphs associated with the first user, the social graph data being stored in a computer-readable storage device, the social graph data including a first set of language statistics and a second set of language statistics based on posts respectively authored by a second user and a third user that connect with the first user within the social networking service;

determining aggregate statistics from the first and second sets of language statistics based on a strength of relationship between the first and second users and a strength of relationship between the first and third users; and

determining the natural language that the text is written in as one of a plurality of potential natural languages based on the aggregate statistics included in the social graph data corresponding to the one or more social graphs associated with the author.

18. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving content data, the content data comprising text;

responsive to determining that the content data is insufficient to accurately determine a natural language in which the text is written by determining that a number of characters of the text is less than a threshold number;

identifying an author of the text, the author being a first user of a social networking service;

retrieving social graph data corresponding to one or more social graphs associated with the first user, the social graph data being stored in a computer-readable storage device, the social graph data including a first set of language statistics and a second set of language statistics based on posts respectively authored by a second user and a third user that connect with the first user within the social networking service;

determining aggregate statistics from the first and second sets of language statistics based on a strength of relationship between the first and second users and a strength of relationship between the first and third users; and

determining the natural language that the text is written in as one of a plurality of potential natural languages based on the aggregate statistics included in the social graph data corresponding to the one or more social graphs associated with the author.