Google Translate PHP

Free Google Translate API PHP Package. Translates totally free of charge.

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• Installation
• Basic Usage
• Advanced Usage
  • Language Detection
  • Supported Languages
  • Preserving Parameters
  • Using Raw Response
  • Custom URL
  • HTTP Client Configuration
  • Custom Token Generator
  • Errors and Exception Handling
• Known Limitations
• Disclaimer
• Donation

Installation

Install this package via Composer.

composer require stichoza/google-translate-php

Note PHP 8.0 or later is required. Use following versions of this package for older PHP versions:

Package version	PHP Version	Documentation
^5.1	PHP >= 8.0	v5 Docs
^4.1	PHP >= 7.1	v4 Docs
^3.2	PHP < 7.1	v3 Docs

Basic Usage

Create GoogleTranslate object

use Stichoza\GoogleTranslate\GoogleTranslate;

$tr = new GoogleTranslate('en'); // Translates into English

Or you can change languages later

$tr = new GoogleTranslate(); // Translates to 'en' from auto-detected language by default
$tr->setSource('en'); // Translate from English
$tr->setSource(); // Detect language automatically
$tr->setTarget('ka'); // Translate to Georgian

Translate sentences

echo $tr->translate('Hello World!');

Also, you can also use method chaining

echo $tr->setSource('en')->setTarget('ka')->translate('Goodbye');

Or call a shorthand static method trans

echo GoogleTranslate::trans('Hello again', 'ka', 'en');

Advanced Usage

Language Detection

To detect language automatically, just set the source language to null:

$tr = new GoogleTranslate('es', null); // Or simply do not pass the second parameter 

$tr->setSource(); // Another way

Use getLastDetectedSource() to get detected language:

$tr = new GoogleTranslate('fr');

$text = $tr->translate('Hello World!');

echo $tr->getLastDetectedSource(); // Output: en

Return value will be null if the language couldn't be detected.

Supported Languages

You can get a list of all the supported languages using the languages method.

$tr = new GoogleTranslate();

$languages = $tr->languages(); // Get supported languages in iso-639 format

// Output: [ 'ab', 'ace', 'ach', 'aa', 'af', 'sq', 'alz', ... ]

Optionally, pass a target language code to retrieve supported languages with names displayed in that language.

$tr = new GoogleTranslate();

$languages = $tr->languages('en'); // Get supported languages, display name in english
// Output: [ 'en' => English', 'es' => 'Spanish', 'it' => 'Italian', ... ]

echo $languages['en']; // Output: 'English'
echo $languages['ka']; // Output: 'Georgian'

Same as with the translate/trans methods, you can also use a static langs method:

GoogleTranslate::langs();
// Output: [ 'ab', 'ace', 'ach', 'aa', 'af', 'sq', 'alz', ... ]

GoogleTranslate::langs('en');
// Output: [ 'en' => English', 'es' => 'Spanish', 'it' => 'Italian', ... ]

Supported languages are also listed in Google API docs.

Preserving Parameters

The preserveParameters() method allows you to preserve certain parameters in strings while performing translations. This is particularly useful when dealing with localization files or templating engines where specific placeholders need to be excluded from translation.

Default regex is /:(\w+)/ which covers parameters starting with :. Useful for translating language files of Laravel and other frameworks. You can also pass your custom regex to modify the parameter syntax.

$tr = new GoogleTranslate('de');

$text = $tr->translate('Page :current of :total'); // Seite :aktuell von :gesamt

$text = $tr->preserveParameters()
           ->translate('Page :current of :total'); // Seite :current von :total

Or use custom regex:

$text = $tr->preserveParameters('/\{\{([^}]+)\}\}/')
           ->translate('Page {{current}} of {{total}}'); // Seite {{current}} von {{total}}

You can use same feature with static trans() method too.

GoogleTranslate::trans('Welcome :name', 'fr', preserveParameters: true); // Default regex

GoogleTranslate::trans('Welcome {{name}}', 'fr', preserveParameters: '/\{\{([^}]+)\}\}/'); // Custom regex

Using Raw Response

For advanced usage, you might need the raw results that Google Translate provides. you can use getResponse method for that.

$responseArray = $tr->getResponse('Hello world!');

Custom URL

You can override the default Google Translate url by setUrl method. Useful for some countries

$tr->setUrl('http://translate.google.cn/translate_a/single'); 

HTTP Client Configuration

This package uses Guzzle for HTTP requests. You can pass an array of guzzle client configuration options as a third parameter to GoogleTranslate constructor, or just use setOptions method.

You can configure proxy, user-agent, default headers, connection timeout and so on using this options.

$tr = new GoogleTranslate('en', 'ka', [
    'timeout' => 10,
    'proxy' => [
        'http'  => 'tcp://localhost:8125',
        'https' => 'tcp://localhost:9124'
    ],
    'headers' => [
        'User-Agent' => 'Foo/5.0 Lorem Ipsum Browser'
    ]
]);

// Set proxy to tcp://localhost:8090
$tr->setOptions(['proxy' => 'tcp://localhost:8090'])->translate('Hello');

// Set proxy to socks5://localhost:1080
$tr->setOptions(['proxy' => 'socks5://localhost:1080'])->translate('World');

For more information, see Creating a Client section in Guzzle docs.

Custom Token Generator

You can override the token generator class by passing a generator object as a fourth parameter of constructor or just use setTokenProvider method.

Generator must implement Stichoza\GoogleTranslate\Tokens\TokenProviderInterface.

use Stichoza\GoogleTranslate\Tokens\TokenProviderInterface;

class MyTokenGenerator implements TokenProviderInterface
{
    public function generateToken(string $source, string $target, string $text): string
    {
        // Your code here
    }
}

And use:

$tr->setTokenProvider(new MyTokenGenerator);

Translation Client (Quality)

Google Translate has a parameter named client which defines quality of translation. First it was set to webapp but later google added gtx value which results in a better translation quality in terms of grammar and overall meaning of sentences.

You can use ->setClient() method to switch between clients. For example if you want to use older version of translation algorithm, type $tr->setClient('webapp')->translate('lorem ipsum...'). Default value is gtx.

Errors and Exception Handling

Static method trans() and non-static translate() and getResponse() methods will throw following exceptions:

• ErrorException If the HTTP request fails for some reason.
• UnexpectedValueException If data received from Google cannot be decoded.

As of v5.1.0 concrete exceptions are available in \Stichoza\GoogleTranslate\Exceptions namespace:

• LargeTextException If the requested text is too large to translate.
• RateLimitException If Google has blocked you for excessive amount requests.
• TranslationRequestException If any other HTTP related error occurs during translation.
• TranslationDecodingException If the response JSON cannot be decoded.

All concrete exceptions are backwards compatible, so if you were using older versions, you won't have to update your code.

TranslationDecodingException extends UnexpectedValueException, while LargeTextException, RateLimitException and TranslationRequestException extend ErrorException that was used in older versions (<5.1.0) of this package.

In addition, translate() and trans() methods will return null if there is no translation available.

Known Limitations

• 503 Service Unavailable response: If you are getting this error, it is most likely that Google has banned your external IP address and/or requires you to solve a CAPTCHA. This is not a bug in this package. Google has become stricter, and it seems like they keep lowering the number of allowed requests per IP per a certain amount of time. Try sending less requests to stay under the radar, or change your IP frequently (for example using proxies). Please note that once an IP is banned, even if it's only temporary, the ban can last from a few minutes to more than 12-24 hours, as each case is different.
• 429 Too Many Requests response: This error is basically the same as explained above.
• 413 Request Entity Too Large response: This error means that your input string is too long. Google only allows a maximum of 5000 characters to be translated at once. If you want to translate a longer text, you can split it to shorter parts, and translate them one-by-one.
• 403 Forbidden response: This is not an issue with this package. Google Translate itself has some problems when it comes to translating some characters and HTML entities. See #119 (comment)

Disclaimer

This package is developed for educational purposes only. Do not depend on this package as it may break anytime as it is based on crawling the Google Translate website. Consider buying Official Google Translate API for other types of usage.

Donation

If this package helped you reduce your time to develop something, or it solved any major problems you had, feel free to give me a cup of coffee :)

• Patreon
• PayPal