Google Translate for Lingua

Does anyone have an extension for Lingua to use Google Translate automatically rather than hours of copy/paste operations?

why not create a file of what you want to translate
paste into Google Translate
Copy the results
and write a script to parse it into the required format

FYI… I would be careful trusting it too much… it isn’t always socially accurate

I’m using it as a first pass - to be checked by a native later.
I think the challenge with your suggestion will be the time taken to paste back again into the right fields. A little extra in Lingua would be kinda nice.

Xojo would have to pay some money to Google for that I presume.

I’ve been thinking about going this route, too. There is an API for Deepl - also from Google. Not too expensive: https://www.deepl.com/pro.html .

Having spent half a day already, and I’m only up to letter L, I’d pay some good money for an auto feature.

I’ve thought about creating such a utility couple of times over the years. I just haven’t seen a big enough market for it to be practical.

The problem I’ve had is that the translation is often not very accurate. When I’ve used Google Translate natives to that language have complained and sent in their own localization. Which, I guess is ‘good enough’ since I now have more accurate localization in some languages.

A while back someone had started a localization database but it folded. Probably because it was a LOT of work to maintain and there weren’t a lot of non-English users that were using it.

How about scanning existing localization files on your computer to build dictionaries to automatically suggest good translation.

E.g. to get Ablage on Mac for File menu instead of Datei.

I have been looking at this issue for a while. what I have been using is Google Translate (or similar) to get the first pass at the translations. Then I find someone that knows that language to help correct the translations.

I would love to be able to get the translations that are (more) accurate in the first pass. but computers are only so accurate.

As said, if you can reuse translations from other apps like the Finder, this may help you.

XDC attendees will get a copy of a project I have been working on that uses either Amazon or Google cloud AI services to translate and updated dynamic constants (now call localized strings)… I will be demoing the app in my session on AI.

It does come with the caveat that the translations still need reviewed by someone that knows the language… but it is a really good start and much cheaper than paying a company to do it from scratch for you… especially considering AWS & Google give you 1 meg of translation per month for free.

That’s awesome! Looking forward to seeing it.

XLIFF is the file format that is used by a lot of international translation software
Basically it is “the standard” for this and can be submitted to translation services, either hand done or automated, and you get back the translated file

I spent some time trying to see how the Xojo localization files for Lingua could use this format and quite honestly what Xojo does is just not covered by the XLIFF 1 or 2 specs in any reasonable way so the locale files were not converted to the more widely used format

XLIFF has a means to have several different translations for the same string
Thats great

But no way to have different translations for the same string based on something more than a language code - Xojo would need something like the Platform & Language code
For example the English mac Quit string might turn into something different for Windows in English, German, and French

XLIFF has no way to handle that :frowning:

Now I know at least one of the sessions to attend. Thanks.