Google Translate-ing Long Files

August 16, 2009 10:57 PM

Is there any way for Google Translate to process long files? It seems to kick out at around 38K.
posted by Yakuman to computers & internet (3 comments total)

If you have access to a Linux server, I believe there is an utility called "tr" which can connect to Google Translate as an external service. Using this, you can write a simple script that feeds your document line by line into Google Translate and saves the output as a new document. Might be more complex of a solution than you need, but it works.
posted by dacoit at 12:03 AM on August 17

Eh? Given that "tr" is traditionally used for character-by-character mapping, I suspect many Unix users would be a bit surprised if someone released a version that talked to Google Translate.

And translating text between human languages line by line? Hmm...
posted by effbot at 1:06 AM on August 17

I'm sorry, it's not tr, it's tw. (I get them confused sometimes). Anyway, I'm speaking as someone who has used this method to successfully translate documents of over 10 MB. Link
posted by dacoit at 8:46 AM on August 17