Translating text (Basic)

This document describes how to use the Cloud Translation - Basic (v2) to translate text.

The input text can be plain text or HTML. Cloud Translation - Basic does not translate any HTML tags in the input, only text that appears between the tags. The output retains the (untranslated) HTML tags, with the translated text between the tags to the extent possible due to differences between the source and target languages. The order of HTML tags in the output may differ from the order in the input text due to word order changes in the translation.

Note: Cloud Translation API does not support input text using other markup languages such as XML. The result when attempting to translate content with other forms of markup is undefined.

Before you begin

Before you can start using the Cloud Translation API, you must have a project that has the Cloud Translation API enabled, and you must have a private key with the appropriate credentials. You can also install client libraries for common programming languages to help you make calls to the API. For more information, see the Setup page.

Translating text

This section demonstrates a few ways to request translations from the https://translation.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2 endpoint.

Translating input strings

REST

To translate text, make a POST request and provide JSON in the request body that identifies the language to translate to (target) and the text to translate (q). You can provide multiple segments of text to translate by including multiple q fields or a list of values for the q field. You cannot exceed 128 text segments. You specify target languages by using their ISO-639 codes.

The following shows an example of a POST request using curl or PowerShell. The example uses the access token for a service account set up for the project using the Google Cloud Google Cloud CLI. For instructions on installing the Google Cloud CLI, setting up a project with a service account, and obtaining an access token, see the Setup page.

HTTP method and URL:

POST https://translation.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2

Request JSON body:

{
  "q": ["Hello world", "My name is Jeff"],
  "target": "de"
}

To send your request, expand one of these options:

curl (Linux, macOS, or Cloud Shell)

Note: Ensure you have set the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable to the path for your service account private key file.

Save the request body in a file called request.json, and execute the following command:

curl -X POST \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8" \
    -d @request.json \
    "https://translation.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2"

PowerShell (Windows)

Note: Ensure you have set the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable to the path for your service account private key file.

Save the request body in a file called request.json, and execute the following command:

$cred = gcloud auth application-default print-access-token
$headers = @{ "Authorization" = "Bearer $cred" }

Invoke-WebRequest `
    -Method POST `
    -Headers $headers `
    -ContentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8" `
    -InFile request.json `
    -Uri "https://translation.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2" | Select-Object -Expand Content

You should receive a JSON response similar to the following:

{
  "data": {
    "translations": [
      {
        "translatedText": "Hallo Welt",
        "detectedSourceLanguage": "en"
      },
      {
        "translatedText": "Mein Name ist Jeff",
        "detectedSourceLanguage": "en"
      }
    ]
  }
}

The translations array contains two translatedText fields with translations provided in the requested target language (de: German). The translations are listed in the same order as the corresponding source array in the request.

Go

Before trying this sample, follow the Go setup instructions in the Translation quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the Translation Go API reference documentation.

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import (
	"context"
	"fmt"

	"cloud.google.com/go/translate"
	"golang.org/x/text/language"
)

func translateText(targetLanguage, text string) (string, error) {
	// text := "The Go Gopher is cute"
	ctx := context.Background()

	lang, err := language.Parse(targetLanguage)
	if err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("language.Parse: %v", err)
	}

	client, err := translate.NewClient(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return "", err
	}
	defer client.Close()

	resp, err := client.Translate(ctx, []string{text}, lang, nil)
	if err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("Translate: %v", err)
	}
	if len(resp) == 0 {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("Translate returned empty response to text: %s", text)
	}
	return resp[0].Text, nil
}

Node.js

Before trying this sample, follow the Node.js setup instructions in the Translation quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the Translation Node.js API reference documentation.

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// Imports the Google Cloud client library
const {Translate} = require('@google-cloud/translate').v2;

// Creates a client
const translate = new Translate();

/**
 * TODO(developer): Uncomment the following lines before running the sample.
 */
// const text = 'The text to translate, e.g. Hello, world!';
// const target = 'The target language, e.g. ru';

async function translateText() {
  // Translates the text into the target language. "text" can be a string for
  // translating a single piece of text, or an array of strings for translating
  // multiple texts.
  let [translations] = await translate.translate(text, target);
  translations = Array.isArray(translations) ? translations : [translations];
  console.log('Translations:');
  translations.forEach((translation, i) => {
    console.log(`${text[i]} => (${target}) ${translation}`);
  });
}

translateText();

Python

Before trying this sample, follow the Python setup instructions in the Translation quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the Translation Python API reference documentation.

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def translate_text(target, text):
    """Translates text into the target language.

    Target must be an ISO 639-1 language code.
    See https://g.co/cloud/translate/v2/translate-reference#supported_languages
    """
    import six
    from google.cloud import translate_v2 as translate

    translate_client = translate.Client()

    if isinstance(text, six.binary_type):
        text = text.decode("utf-8")

    # Text can also be a sequence of strings, in which case this method
    # will return a sequence of results for each text.
    result = translate_client.translate(text, target_language=target)

    print(u"Text: {}".format(result["input"]))
    print(u"Translation: {}".format(result["translatedText"]))
    print(u"Detected source language: {}".format(result["detectedSourceLanguage"]))

Additional languages

C#: Please follow the C# setup instructions on the client libraries page and then visit the Translation reference documentation for .NET.

PHP: Please follow the PHP setup instructions on the client libraries page and then visit the Translation reference documentation for PHP.

Ruby: Please follow the Ruby setup instructions on the client libraries page and then visit the Translation reference documentation for Ruby.

Model parameter

When you make a translation request to the Cloud Translation - Basic, your text is translated using the Google Neural Machine Translation (NMT) model. You cannot use any other model. To use AutoML models to translate text, use Cloud Translation - Advanced.

Note: Translation previously offered a Phrase-Based Machine Translation (PBMT) model (also known as the base model). If you specify that model for translations, Translation uses the NMT model instead.

Try it for yourself

If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how Cloud Translation performs in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

Try Cloud Translation free

Additional resources

• For help on resolving common issues or errors, see the Troubleshooting page.