Setup

To start using Cloud Translation, you need a project that has the Cloud Translation API enabled and credentials to make authenticated calls. The following sections detail how to get set up before you make your first call to the Cloud Translation API.

The setup process involves the Google Cloud console, which is a web interface that you can use to provision, configure, manage, and monitor systems in Google Cloud. If you haven't used the Google Cloud console before, see the Cloud console page for more information.

Before you begin

Cloud Translation is available in two editions (Basic and Advanced). Decide which edition to use because each edition has its own set of client libraries.

Create or select a project

To use services provided by Google Cloud, you must create a project. A project organizes all your Google Cloud resources. A project consists of a set of collaborators, enabled APIs (and other resources), monitoring tools, billing information, and authentication and access controls. You can create one project, or you can create multiple projects and use them to organize your Google Cloud resources in a resource hierarchy. When creating a project, take note of the project ID. You will need this ID to make API calls. For more information on projects, see the Resource Manager documentation.

We recommend that you create separate projects for experiments, testing, and production. After you create a project, record the project number or ID. You must provide the project number (or ID) when you make calls to the Cloud Translation API.

In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

Go to project selector

Enable billing

You must enable billing to use Cloud Translation. For more information about Cloud Translation pricing, see the pricing page.

Note: To help you manage your budget, you can set your usage limits on your projects. For more information, see Set usage quotas.

A billing account is used to define who pays for a given set of resources, and it can be linked to one or more projects. Project usage is charged to the linked billing account. In most cases, you configure billing when you create a project. For more information, see the Billing documentation.

Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project. Learn how to check if billing is enabled on a project.

Enabling the API

You must enable the Cloud Translation API for your project. For more information on enabling APIs, see the Service Usage documentation.

Enable the Cloud Translation API.

Enable the API

Set usage quotas

Cloud Translation has a quota management system to help you and Google manage usage of the service. By default, the number of characters that you can send per day is unlimited. If you have a set budget, we recommend monitoring your daily usage and adjusting quotas according to your planned spend.

For more information about quotas, see Quotas and limits.

Set up authentication

If you plan to use the Cloud Translation API, you need to set up authentication. Any client application that uses the API must be authenticated and granted access to the requested resources. For more information, see Authenticate to Cloud Translation.

Identity and Access Management roles

When a principal (user account, service account, and so on) calls an API, Google Cloud requires that the principal has the appropriate permissions. You can grant permissions by granting roles to a principal. For more information, see Control access with IAM.

Note: Role permissions only apply to Cloud Translation - Advanced. Although you can use service accounts for both editions, you can only set specific permissions for Cloud Translation - Advanced. For Cloud Translation - Basic, you can make any request regardless of the service account's permissions.

Installing client libraries

Client libraries are available for several popular languages. We recommend that you use these client libraries to make calls to Cloud Translation because they make it easier to access the APIs. If a client library doesn't meet your needs or isn't available for your language, build your own custom code. For more information, see Using your own client code.

For example, when you use a client library, it can determine your credentials implicitly through the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable. You don't need to explicitly specify your credentials in code. For more information, see Client Libraries Explained in the Cloud APIs documentation.

Cloud Translation - Basic client libraries

Select the programming language that you are using for development, and then run the related command. For more information, see the Cloud Translation - Basic client libraries overview.

C#

nuget install Google.Cloud.Translation.V2

Go

go get cloud.google.com/go/translate

Java

Caution: The Java client library does not support Android.

If you are using Maven, add the following to your pom.xml file. For more information about BOMs, see The Google Cloud Platform Libraries BOM.

<dependencyManagement>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.cloud</groupId>
      <artifactId>libraries-bom</artifactId>
      <version>26.12.0</version>
      <type>pom</type>
      <scope>import</scope>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>com.google.cloud</groupId>
    <artifactId>google-cloud-translate</artifactId>
  </dependency>

If you are using Gradle, add the following to your dependencies:

implementation 'com.google.cloud:google-cloud-translate:2.18.0'

If you are using sbt, add the following to your dependencies:

libraryDependencies += "com.google.cloud" % "google-cloud-translate" % "2.18.0"

If you're using Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ, or Eclipse, you can add client libraries to your project using the following IDE plugins:

• Cloud Code for VS Code
• Cloud Code for IntelliJ
• Cloud Tools for Eclipse

The plugins provide additional functionality, such as key management for service accounts. Refer to each plugin's documentation for details.

Note: Cloud Java client libraries do not currently support Android.

Node.js

For more on setting up your Node.js development environment, refer to the Node.js Development Environment Setup Guide.

npm install --save @google-cloud/translate

PHP

composer require google/cloud-translate

Python

For more on setting up your Python development environment, refer to the Python Development Environment Setup Guide.

pip install google-cloud-translate==2.0.1

Ruby

For more on setting up your Ruby development environment, refer to the Ruby Development Environment Setup Guide.

gem install google-cloud-translate-v2

Cloud Translation - Advanced client libraries

Select the programming language that you are using for development, and then run the related command. For more information, see the Cloud Translation - Advanced client libraries overview.

C#

nuget install Google.Cloud.Translate.V3 -Pre

Go

go get cloud.google.com/go/translate/apiv3

Java

Caution: The Java client library does not support Android.

If you are using Maven, add the following to your pom.xml file. For more information about BOMs, see The Google Cloud Platform Libraries BOM.

<dependencyManagement>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.cloud</groupId>
      <artifactId>libraries-bom</artifactId>
      <version>26.12.0</version>
      <type>pom</type>
      <scope>import</scope>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>com.google.cloud</groupId>
    <artifactId>google-cloud-translate</artifactId>
  </dependency>

If you are using Gradle, add the following to your dependencies:

implementation 'com.google.cloud:google-cloud-translate:2.18.0'

If you are using sbt, add the following to your dependencies:

libraryDependencies += "com.google.cloud" % "google-cloud-translate" % "2.18.0"

If you're using Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ, or Eclipse, you can add client libraries to your project using the following IDE plugins:

• Cloud Code for VS Code
• Cloud Code for IntelliJ
• Cloud Tools for Eclipse

The plugins provide additional functionality, such as key management for service accounts. Refer to each plugin's documentation for details.

Note: Cloud Java client libraries do not currently support Android.

Node.js

For more on setting up your Node.js development environment, refer to the Node.js Development Environment Setup Guide.

npm install --save @google-cloud/translate

PHP

composer require google/cloud-translate

Python

For more on setting up your Python development environment, refer to the Python Development Environment Setup Guide.

pip install --upgrade google-cloud-translate

Ruby

For more on setting up your Ruby development environment, refer to the Ruby Development Environment Setup Guide.

gem install google-cloud-translate

Install the Google Cloud CLI

Note: You can skip this step if you won't be using the command line to make authenticated API calls.

If you plan to send Cloud Translation requests through the command line (such as through curl commands), install and initialize the gcloud CLI , which is included in the Google Cloud CLI. The following link provides more information:

Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:

gcloud init

Test the SDK and authentication

If you have set up the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable, you can use gcloud to test your authentication environment. Run the following command and verify that no error occurs and that credentials are returned:

gcloud auth application-default print-access-token

The previous command is used by all Cloud Translation command line REST samples to authenticate API calls.

What's next

• Try the quickstarts to make simple translation calls:

  • Cloud Translation - Basic quickstart
  • Cloud Translation - Advanced quickstart

• View the how-to guides for more information about using various Cloud Translation features.

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