Troubleshooting

How do I tell Translation API - Advanced to not translate something?

You can use the following HTML tags:

• <span translate="no"> </span>
• <span class="notranslate"> </span>

This functionality requires the source text to be submitted in HTML.

Why was a style attribute added to the translated text with text-align and direction CSS properties?

This occurs when you include HTML with the requested text to be translated, and you are translating from a right-to-left to a left-to-right language, or from a left-to-right to a right-to-left language. The translation includes the HTML style attribute with the text-align and direction CSS properties to ensure that the translated text is oriented in the proper direction. For example, translating <h2>Sample text</h2> from English to Hebrew returns the following JSON:

{
  "data": {
    "translations": [
      {
        "translatedText": "\u003ch2 style=\";text-align:right;direction:rtl\"\u003e טקסט לדוגמה (דברים) \u003c/h2\u003e"
      }
    ]
  }
}

I get an HTTP 403 error when I call the API.

You may be exceeding your quota: either the daily billable total, or the limit on characters per 100 seconds. The error message says Daily Limit Exceeded if you exceeded the daily limit or User Rate Limit Exceeded if you exceeded either of the "Characters per 100 seconds" quotas.

To view or change usage limits for your project, or to request an increase to your quota, do the following:

1. If you don't already have a billing account for your project, then create one.
2. Visit the Enabled APIs page of the API library in the GCP Console, and select an API from the list.
3. To view and change quota-related settings, select Quotas. To view usage statistics, select Usage.

I sometimes get HTTP 500 (Internal Errors) response from the API

This could happen if you submit text without the source language specified. If Google cannot determine the source language given the text (usually because the text is too short), we will return a 500. This situation can be fixed by specifying the source language explicitly.

Can I specify multiple target languages in one request?

You can supply up to ten target languages in a batch request. If you're not making a batch request, you can only specify a single target language with your request.

Is it possible to get multiple translations of a word?

No. This feature is only available via the web interface at translate.google.com