Quickstart Google Cloud Translation API

This page shows how to make a Google Cloud Translation API request with curl.

Before you begin

1. Set up a GCP Console project. Set up a project
   
   Click to:
   

   • Create or select a project.
   • Enable the Cloud Translation API for that project.
   • Create a service account.
   • Download a private key as JSON.

   You can view and manage these resources at any time in the GCP Console.
2. Install and initialize the Cloud SDK.
3. Provide authentication credentials to your application code by running the following command. Replace [PATH] with the location of the JSON file that contains your credentials.
   

   gcloud auth activate-service-account --key-file=[PATH]

Make a Translation API request

Make a Translation API Request using a REST method call to the v2 translate method.

1. Use curl to make a request to the https://translation.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2 endpoint.
   The curl command includes JSON with the text to be translated (q), the language to translate from (source), and the language to translate to (target).
   The source and target languages are identified using the iso-639-1 codes. The source language is English (en) and the target language is Spanish (es). The format of the query is noted as "text" for plain text.
   
   The sample curl command uses the gcloud auth print-access-token command to get an authentication token.

   curl -s -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
       -H "Authorization: Bearer "$(gcloud auth print-access-token) \
       --data "{
     'q': 'The Great Pyramid of Giza (also known as the Pyramid of Khufu or the
           Pyramid of Cheops) is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in
           the Giza pyramid complex.',
     'source': 'en',
     'target': 'es',
     'format': 'text'
   }" "https://translation.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2"
     

   You should see a response similar to the following:
   

   {
     "data": {
       "translations": [
         {
           "translatedText": "La Gran Pirámide de Giza (también conocida como la
            Pirámide de Khufu o la Pirámide de Keops) es la más antigua y más
            grande de las tres pirámides en el complejo de la pirámide de Giza."
         }
       ]
     }
   }
   
     

Congratulations! You've sent your first request to the Cloud Translation API!

Clean up

To avoid unnecessary Google Cloud Platform charges, use the GCP Console to delete your project if you do not need it.