Multi-lingual online community

Description

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Present Invention

This application relates generally to online communities and more specifically to providing a multi-lingual online community.

2. Related Art

Currently, the Internet, including the World-Wide Web (WWW), is used to publish material written in many languages. This material includes news articles, essays, blog posts, community discussion groups, business and shopping websites, and the like. In some instances, this material is posted in multiple languages. For example, an international hotel chain may publish multiple versions of a website in languages in which its guests are likely to communicate. For example, a hotel chain in Europe may post the same website in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Romanian. When a guest accesses the website, the guest may be given an opportunity to select a preferred language. The hotel website may then download a “cookie” to the guest's computer indicating the preferred language so that when the guest subsequently visits the website, the corresponding version of the website is automatically displayed.

The Internet has further enabled people to meet and communicate with one another in online communities. Online communities, such as Digg, Deli.ci.ous, StumbledUpon, and Ars Technica enable members to provide content in the form of original articles and posts within discussion groups. Further, a member may provide a link to material posted by a third party. Other members may, in turn, comment on the material. For example, a member may provide a link to a blog posted on the Internet. After reading the material, another member may post a comment in reaction to the article. Further, other members may post additional comments in reaction to the comments posted by the members. In some communities, members can vote on or rate the articles posted in the communities.

In online communities, all of the members typically need to speak the same language in order to have meaningful discussions. Currently, this condition results in online communities that are segregated based on language. For example, an English speaker can not meaningfully participate in an Arabic-speaking online community and vice-versa. Further, membership in online communities is limited to members who speak the language of the community.

SUMMARY

A method for hosting a community in multiple languages is provided. The method comprises receiving a request from a first member of a community. The request indicates an instruction to post content written in a first language within the community. Next, the content is translated into a second language. Login information is received from a second member. The second member is associated with the second language. The translated content is displayed to the second member.

The method may further comprise retrieving the content from a content source. The second member may be associated with the second language via a profile. The content may comprise a post in a message board associated with the community or a comment associated with the community.

The method may further comprise providing a link to the content in the first language to the second member and the content may be displayed to the second member in the first language. Feedback may be received from the second member. The feedback may relate to the translation of the content or include a suggested translation.

A system for hosting a community in multiple languages may comprise a content module, a translation module, and a storage medium. The content module may receive a request from a first member of a community to post content in a first language within the community. The translation module may translate the content into a second language. The storage medium may store the translated content.

A computer readable medium having embodied thereon a program, the program being executable by a processor for performing a method for hosting a community in multiple languages is provided. The method comprises receiving a request from a first member of a community. The request indicates an instruction to post content written in a first language within the community. Next, the content is translated into a second language. Login information is received from a second member. The second member is associated with the second language. The translated content is displayed to the second member.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary environment in which various embodiments of the invention may be practiced;

FIG. 2 depicts a block diagram of an exemplary community host according to various embodiments;

FIG. 3 depicts an exemplary screenshot of an online community in English according to various embodiments;

FIG. 4 depicts an exemplary screenshot of the online community in French according to various embodiments;

FIG. 5 depicts a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method for hosting a multi-lingual online community according to various embodiments; and

FIG. 6 depicts a flowchart illustrating an exemplary method for receiving translation feedback according to various embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

An exemplary method, system, and computer readable medium for hosting a multi-lingual community are provided. The multi-lingual community is an online community wherein a significant portion of content posted in the online community is translated into at least one language other than the language in which the content was originally posted. The multilingual community allows members who are otherwise unable to communicate with each other due to language barriers to each communicate in a preferred language in substantially real time. The multilingual community may include content generated by the members, such as posts within discussion groups, original articles, comments posted by the members relating to other content, and/or any type of media.

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary environment 100 in which various embodiments of the invention may be practiced. The environment 100 may comprise a community host 102, one or more content sources 106A through 106N, and one or more members 108A through 108N coupled via a network 110. The community host 102 may communicate with an external translation engine 104.

The community host 102 may host a website comprising an online community. The online community includes content selected and/or generated by the members 108A and 108N. The community host 102 may generate the website comprising the content associated with the online community. The community host 102 may include profiles of the members 108A through 108N indicating demographic information and/or various preferences, including a preferred language. The community host 102 may further include an interface allowing a user, such as the members 108A through 108N, to remove, edit, or add content to the online community. The community host 102 may further provide translations of the content via the translation engine 104.

The translation engine 104 is depicted separately from the community host 102 in FIG. 1. In other embodiments, and as described in FIG. 2, the translation engine 104 may be embodied in a module within the community host 102. The translation engine 104 may comprise a statistical machine translation (SMT) engine. The SMT engine generates a translation of a document based on a set of statistical probabilities associated with a source language of the document and a target language into which the document is translated. The translation engine 104, in other embodiments, may generate a translation according to a Translation Memory (TM) database comprising entries containing parallel translations of words and/or phrases in at least two languages.

The content sources 106A through 106N comprise websites typically not associated with the online community. However, one or more of the content sources 106A through 106N may be associated with the online community according to some embodiments. For example, the content source 106A may comprise an online newspaper, blog, a website associated with a business, or the like. The content source 106A, for example, may provide content in a plurality of languages. For example, a news website may post articles in English, French, Arabic, and Japanese.

The members 108A through 108N comprise users who are associated with the online community hosted by the community host 102. The members 108A through 108N may speak different languages. A member, such as the member 108A, may select content posted by the content source 106A in any language. Content in languages supported by the community host 102 may be translated into the other languages supported by the community host 102 and posted within the online community. The content may be posted within the online community by providing a link to the website of the content source 106A. In instances where the content appears in multiple languages at the content source 106A, links may be provided within the online community accordingly. The community host 102 may also generate a mirror copy of the content.

Each member, such as the member 108A, may generate content within the online community. For example, the member 108A may write an original article and post the article in the online community. The member 108A may also generate content by participating in a discussion group or by commenting on an article posted by another member, such as the member 108N.

In operation, the community host 102 receives the content and/or the content selections from the members 108A through 108N. The community host 102 posts the content and/or a link to the content within the online community. The translation engine 104 may associate the content with a source language and translate the content into at least one other target language. For example, the translation engine 104 may translate a copy of the content (e.g., a news article) selected by the member 108A. The translation engine 104 further translates the content generated by the members 108A through 108N of the online community. As such, if the member 108A logs into the online community, the member 108A is able to view the content or link to the content posted in the online community in a preferred language associated with the member 108A.

FIG. 2 depicts a block diagram of an exemplary community host 102 according to various embodiments. The community host 102 may comprise a content module 202, a translation module 204, an interface module 206, and a profile module 208. In exemplary embodiments, the community host 102 generates and maintains the online community.

The exemplary content module 202 retrieves and stores the content posted in the online community. The content module 202 may receive a request from a first member of a community to post content in a first language within the community and store the content itself, one or more links to the content, and/or translated copies of the content in a database or other storage medium. The content module 202 retrieves and arranges documents from a content source, such as the content sources 106A through 106N, comments associated with the documents, and/or posts within a discussion group in a website associated with the online community.

The translation module 204 comprises software, firmware, and/or hardware for translating the content into one or more languages. The translation module 204 may be based on SMT and/or TM. The translation module 204 may further generate language-specific versions of the online community. The translation module 204 is configured to generate translations of the user-selected and/or user-generated content within the community into at least one other language. The translation module 204 allows the members 108A through 108N to communicate with each other in each member's preferred language.

The interface module 206 generates a website or other interface for members 108A through 108N to view and add content to the online community. The interface module 206 may receive login information from a member 108A associated with a second language and display the translated content to the member 108A. To receive the login information, the interface module 206 may display a login interface to the member 108A. The member 108A may provide a password and screen name to login to the online community.

The screen name and/or a member's name may be verified by a profile module 208. The profile module 208 processes information associated with the members 108A through 108N. The profile module 208 may access a stored profile associated with the member 108A. The profile module 208 may also maintain or update a database comprising information such as a member login name, preferred language, demographic information, or the like. The preferred language information may be used by the content module 202 and the interface module 206 to display the online community in an individual member's preferred language if the member has logged into the online community. For example, the member 108A may generate a profile within the profile module 208 indicating that the member's preferred language is Arabic. If the member 108A subsequently logs in to the community host 102 via the online community website, the community host 102 will automatically transmit the Arabic version of the content posted within the community.

Although the community host 102 in FIG. 2 is illustrated as being comprised of the content module 202, the translation module 204, the interface module 206, and the profile module 208, fewer or more modules may comprise the community host 102 and still fall within the scope of various embodiments.

FIG. 3 depicts an exemplary screenshot 300 of an online community in English according to various embodiments. The screenshot 300 is an exemplary depiction of a webpage where member 108A may post a comment relating to content posted within the online community. In exemplary embodiments, the screenshot 300 may comprise original content 302, menu items 304, and comments 306.

The original content 302 may comprise the content or a link to the content, a name or other identifier of the member 108A who posted the content, and/or an introduction to the content written by the member 108A. In various embodiments, the link may direct the member 108N to the original content posted by the content source 106A, a translation of the content posted by the content source 106A, or to a copy or translation of the content maintained by the community host 102. In some embodiments the link may be a text link.

In exemplary embodiments, the menu items 304 may comprise an option to edit the content, comment about the content, and/or make a suggestion regarding the content and/or a translation of the content. Further, the menu items 304 may include links to other translations of the content. For example, as shown, links to translations in Arabic, Chinese, French, and Spanish versions of the content and/or the comments 306 are provided.

The comments 306 comprise a listing of comments made by members 108A through 108N regarding the content. The comments 306 may further comprise a translation of a comment relating to the original content 302 posted by a member 108N. For example, the comment 306 may be translated to or from French.

FIG. 4 depicts an exemplary screenshot 400 of the online community in French according to various embodiments. The screenshot 400 is an exemplary depiction of a webpage where the member 108A may post a comment relating to content posted within the online community. The screenshot 400 depicts a French-language version of the screenshot 300 of FIG. 3.

Like the screenshot 300, the screenshot 400 may comprise translated original content 402, menu items 404, and comments 406. The translated original content 402 may comprise a link to a translation of the original content 302. Further, the translated original content 402 may include an indication of a quality of the translation. The menu items 404 may be displayed in English (as depicted) or in the same language that the content and/or the comments are displayed. In this embodiment, for example, the menu items 404 may be displayed in French. The comments 406 may be translated into French from other languages or received in French and posted within the online community.

For example, in the embodiments depicted in FIG. 3 and FIG. 4, the member “ralphy” may be a French speaker, the member “flungster” may be an English speaker, and the member “theman” may be a Chinese speaker. The member “flungster” may post the original content 302 in the online community. The community host 102 may link to and/or generate a translation of the original content 302. The members “ralphy” and “theman” may view the French and Chinese translated original content 402, respectively. Each member may additionally post comments in their language and read the comments posted by the other members regardless of the original language that the content and the comments were written in. In this example, “flungster” may view screenshot 300 and “ralphy” may view screenshot 400.

FIG. 5 depicts a flowchart illustrating a process 500 for hosting a multi-lingual online community according to exemplary embodiments. In exemplary embodiments, the process 500 may be performed by the community host 102. The process 500 allows the members 108A through 108N to communicate with each other regardless of whether the members 108A through 108N speak the same language. The process 500 may be performed for each piece of the content selected and/or generated by the members 108A through 108N.

In step 502, a request to post content within the online community is received from a first member, such as the member 108A. The content may, comprise an article, media, or document posted by a content source, such as the content source 106A, or content generated by the member 108A, for example. In embodiments where the content is posted by the content source 106A, the content may be retrieved from the content source 106A by the content module 202 in step 504. In some embodiments, the content may be retrieved by generating at least one link to the content source 106A and/or generating a copy of the content.

In instances where the content source 106A posts the content in more than one language, additional translations may also be retrieved from the content source 106A. For example, if the member 108A selects the content from a hotel website that is published in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Romanian, the content in each of the five languages may be retrieved from the hotel website and/or separately linked to the online community.

In embodiments where the content is generated by the member 108A, the content module 202 receives the content from the member 108A. In some embodiments, the content module 202 may associate the content with the member 108A. The content generated by the member 108A may be also associated with content retrieved from the content source 106A.

In step 506, the content may be automatically translated into one or more languages. In exemplary embodiments, the translation engine 104 or the translation module 204 may translate the content using an SMT engine and/or by referring to a TM database. In alternative embodiments, other forms of translation engines and databases may be utilized. The content may be translated into more than one language depending on the languages supported within the online community and/or requested by the members 108A through 108N.

In step 508, a determination may be made based on whether another member, such as a second member, has logged into the online community. For example, the second member may log in via the interface module 206. This second member may be associated with a profile indicating a preferred language. In step 510, the preferred language information may be retrieved from a database in which the second member's profile is maintained by, for example, the profile module 208. In some embodiments, the second member may be associated with more than one preferred language. In alternative embodiments, the translation may be generated in response to a request for content in a preferred language. To illustrate, rather than performing step 506 once the content is retrieved, the translation into the preferred language may be generated after step 510 is performed.

In step 512, the content within the community is displayed to the second member in the second member's preferred language by the interface module 206. Links to content from the content sources 106A through 106N may be provided according to the preferred language such that an English speaker views a link to the English version while a French speaker views a link to the French version. The second member may further select and/or generate additional content to be posted within the online community in the second member's preferred language. The content posted by the second member may be translated into the first member's language such that if the first member logs into the online community, the first member may view the content generated by the second member in the first member's preferred language.

To illustrate, the first member may generate a post, in Arabic, in a discussion group within the online community. An English-speaking second member may view an English translation of the post. The English-speaking second member may then post a reply in the discussion group in English. In turn, the first member may view an Arabic translation of the English language reply. Additional members may read and reply to the posts in other languages. Thus, members are able to communicate with one another in each member's preferred language.

FIG. 6 depicts a flowchart illustrating a method 600 for receiving translation feedback according to exemplary embodiments. A member who is fluent in, or has knowledge of, two or more languages may wish to view the original content even though it is not written in the member's preferred language. A member may wish to view the content if, for example, the translation is confusing, the member wishes to refine his or her knowledge of the language, or for other reasons. According to exemplary embodiments, translation feedback may be used to train an SMT engine if the translation feedback is collected by the translation engine 104 or the translation module 204.

In step 602, a request to view the original content is received from a member, such as the member 108A. The original content is the content in the language in which it was generated and/or retrieved. The original content is displayed in step 604. In some embodiments, a feedback interface may also be displayed.

In step 606, quantitative feedback may be received from the member 108A via the feedback interface. The quantitative feedback may include a rating indicating translation quality. For example, the member 108A may rate a translation on a numerical scale of one to five where a rating of one indicates an inaccurate translation, a rating of three indicates an accurate, but linguistically awkward, translation, and a rating of five indicates that the translation is both accurate and fluent. Any rating system may be utilized to provide feedback about the translation and any meaning may be assigned to rating symbols. For example, a rating of one or a non-numerical symbol may indicate a perfect translation according to some embodiments.

In step 608, qualitative feedback may be received from the member 108A. Qualitative feedback may include a comment about a specific aspect of the translation such as tone, slang usage, and so forth. Qualitative feedback may additionally include suggested translations for words or phrases within the content. For example, the member 108A may suggest an alternative translation for jargon or slang phrases used in the posted content. In one embodiment, qualitative feedback may additionally include a fully post edited version of the translation made available by the online community server; or a post edited version of a translation that was previously post edited by another community member.

In step 610, a qualitative feedback comprising a post edited version of the translation may be published in the online community. The post edited version of the translation may be reviewed by a human translator or automatic process for accuracy. For example, the human translator may be the member 108N. A further post edited version of the translation, or other feedback, may be received from the member 108N in step 612. The post edited version of the translation, or other feedback, received from member 108N may be posted in the online community by returning to step 610. If one of the post edited versions of the translation is accurate, the accurate version of the translation may be added to a training set in the SMT engine and/or TM database. In some embodiments, no feedback is collected when the original content is displayed.

The above-described functions and components can be comprised of instructions that are stored on a storage medium. The instructions can be retrieved and executed by a processor. Some examples of instructions are software, program code, and firmware. Some examples of storage medium are memory devices, tape, disks, integrated circuits, and servers. The instructions are operational when executed by the processor to direct the processor to operate in accord with various embodiments. Those skilled in the art are familiar with instructions, processor(s), and storage medium.

While various embodiments have been described above, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation. The scope of the present disclosure is in no way limited to the languages used to describe exemplary embodiments. Thus, the breadth and scope of a preferred embodiment should not be limited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments.