trans - Man Page

Command-line translator using Google Translate, Bing Translator, Yandex.Translate, etc.

Examples (TL;DR)

Synopsis

trans [Options] [SOURCE]:[TARGETS] [TEXT]...

Description

This tool translates text into any language from the command-line, using a translation engine such as Google Translate, Bing Translator and Yandex.Translate.

Each argument which is not a valid option is treated as TEXT to be translated.

If neither TEXT nor the input file is specified by command-line arguments, the program will read and translate from standard input.

Options

Information options

-V,  -version

Print version and exit.

-H,  -help

Print help message and exit.

-M,  -man

Show man page and exit.

-T,  -reference

Print reference table of all supported languages and codes, and exit. Names of languages are displayed in their endonyms (language name in the language itself).

-R,  -reference-english

Print reference table of all supported languages and codes, and exit. Names of languages are displayed in English.

-S,  -list-engines

List available translation engines and exit.

-list-languages

List all supported languages (in endonyms) and exit.

-list-languages-english

List all supported languages (in English names) and exit.

-list-codes

List all supported codes and exit.

-list-all

List all supported languages (endonyms and English names) and codes, and exit.

-L CODES, -linguist CODES

Print details of languages and exit. When specifying two or more language codes, concatenate them by plus sign "+".

-U,  -upgrade

Check for upgrade of this program.

Translator options

-e ENGINE, -engine ENGINE

Specify the translation engine to use. (default: auto)

Display options

-verbose

Verbose mode.

Show the original text and its most relevant translation, then its phonetic notation (if any), then its alternative translations (if any) or its definition in the dictionary (if it is a word).

This option is unnecessary in most cases since verbose mode is enabled by default.

-b,  -brief

Brief mode.

Show the most relevant translation or its phonetic notation only.

-d,  -dictionary

Dictionary mode.

Show the definition of the original word in the dictionary.

-identify

Language identification.

Show the identified language of the original text.

-show-original Y/n

Show original text or not. (default: yes)

-show-original-phonetics Y/n

Show phonetic notation of original text or not. (default: yes)

-show-translation Y/n

Show translation or not. (default: yes)

-show-translation-phonetics Y/n

Show phonetic notation of translation or not. (default: yes)

-show-prompt-message Y/n

Show prompt message or not. (default: yes)

-show-languages Y/n

Show source and target languages or not. (default: yes)

-show-original-dictionary y/N

Show dictionary entry of original text or not. (default: no)

This option is enabled in dictionary mode.

-show-dictionary Y/n

Show dictionary entry of translation or not. (default: yes)

-show-alternatives Y/n

Show alternative translations or not. (default: yes)

-w NUM, -width NUM

Specify the screen width for padding.

This option overrides the setting of environment variable $COLUMNS.

-indent NUM

Specify the size of indent (number of spaces). (default: 4)

-theme FILENAME

Specify the theme to use. (default: default)

-no-theme

Do not use any other theme than default.

-no-ansi

Do not use ANSI escape codes.

-no-autocorrect

Do not autocorrect. (if defaulted by the translation engine)

-no-bidi

Do not convert bidirectional texts.

-bidi

Always convert bidirectional texts.

-no-warn

Do not write warning messages to stderr.

-dump

Print raw API response instead.

Audio options

-p,  -play

Listen to the translation.

You must have at least one of the supported audio players (mplayer, mpv or mpg123) installed to stream from Google Text-to-Speech engine. Otherwise, a local speech synthesizer may be used instead (say on macOS, espeak on Linux or other platforms).

-speak

Listen to the original text.

-n VOICE, -narrator VOICE

Specify the narrator, and listen to the translation.

Common values for this option are male and female.

-player PROGRAM

Specify the audio player to use, and listen to the translation.

Option -play will try to use mplayer, mpv or mpg123 by default, since these players are known to work for streaming URLs. Not all command-line audio players can work this way. Use this option only when you have your own preference.

This option overrides the setting of environment variable $PLAYER.

-no-play

Do not listen to the translation.

-no-translate

Do not translate anything when using -speak.

-download-audio

Download the audio to the current directory.

-download-audio-as FILENAME

Download the audio to the specified file.

Terminal paging and browsing options

-v,  -view

View the translation in a terminal pager (less, more or most).

-pager PROGRAM

Specify the terminal pager to use, and view the translation.

This option overrides the setting of environment variable $PAGER.

-no-view,  -no-pager

Do not view the translation in a terminal pager.

-browser PROGRAM

Specify the web browser to use.

This option overrides the setting of environment variable $BROWSER.

-no-browser

Do not open the web browser.

Networking options

-x HOST:PORT, -proxy HOST:PORT

Use HTTP proxy on given port.

This option overrides the setting of environment variables $HTTP_PROXY and $http_proxy.

-u STRING, -user-agent STRING

Specify the User-Agent to identify as.

This option overrides the setting of environment variables $USER_AGENT.

-4,  -ipv4,  -inet4-only

Connect only to IPv4 addresses.

-6,  -ipv6,  -inet6-only

Connect only to IPv6 addresses.

Interactive shell options

-I,  -interactive,  -shell

Start an interactive shell, invoking rlwrap whenever possible (unless -no-rlwrap is specified).

-E,  -emacs

Start the GNU Emacs front-end for an interactive shell.

This option does not need to, and cannot be used along with -I or -no-rlwrap.

-no-rlwrap

Do not invoke rlwrap when starting an interactive shell.

This option is useful when your terminal type is not supported by rlwrap (e.g. emacs).

I/O options

-i FILENAME, -input FILENAME

Specify the input file.

Source text to be translated will be read from the input file, instead of standard input.

-o FILENAME, -output FILENAME

Specify the output file.

Translations will be written to the output file, instead of standard output.

Language preference options

-hl CODE, -host CODE

Specify your home language (the language you would like to see for displaying prompt messages in the translation).

This option affects only the display in verbose mode (anything other than source language and target language will be displayed in your home language). This option has no effect in brief mode.

This option is optional. When its setting is omitted, English will be used.

This option overrides the setting of environment variables $LC_ALL, $LANG, and $HOST_LANG.

-s CODES, -sl CODES, -source CODES, -from CODES

Specify the source language(s) (the language(s) of original text). When specifying two or more language codes, concatenate them by plus sign "+".

This option is optional. When its setting is omitted, the language of original text will be identified automatically (with a possibility of misidentification).

This option overrides the setting of environment variable $SOURCE_LANG.

-t CODES, -tl CODES, -target CODES, -to CODES

Specify the target language(s) (the language(s) of translated text). When specifying two or more language codes, concatenate them by plus sign "+".

This option is optional. When its setting is omitted, everything will be translated into English.

This option overrides the setting of environment variables $LC_ALL, $LANG, and $TARGET_LANG.

[SOURCE]:[TARGETS]

A simpler, alternative way to specify the source language and target language(s) is to use a shortcut formatted string:

  • SOURCE-CODE:TARGET-CODE
  • SOURCE-CODE:TARGET-CODE1+TARGET-CODE2+...
  • SOURCE-CODE=TARGET-CODE
  • SOURCE-CODE=TARGET-CODE1+TARGET-CODE2+...

Delimiter ":" and "=" can be used interchangeably.

Either SOURCE or TARGETS may be omitted, but the delimiter character must be kept.

Text preprocessing options

-j,  -join-sentence

Treat all arguments as one single sentence.

Other options

-no-init

Do not load any initialization script.

--

End-of-options.

All arguments after this option are treated as TEXT to be translated.

Exit Status

0

Successful translation.

1

Error.

Environment

PAGER

Equivalent to option setting -pager.

BROWSER

Equivalent to option setting -browser.

PLAYER

Equivalent to option setting -player.

HTTP_PROXY

Equivalent to option setting -proxy.

USER_AGENT

Equivalent to option setting -user-agent.

HOST_LANG

Equivalent to option setting -host.

SOURCE_LANG

Equivalent to option setting -source.

TARGET_LANG

Equivalent to option setting -target.

Files

/etc/translate-shell

Initialization script. (system-wide)

$HOME/.translate-shell/init.trans

Initialization script. (user-specific)

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/translate-shell/init.trans

Initialization script. (user-specific)

./.trans

Initialization script. (current directory)

Further Documentation

<https://github.com/soimort/translate-shell/wiki>

Reporting Bugs

<https://github.com/soimort/translate-shell/issues>

Authors

Mort Yao <soi@mort.ninja>.

Info

2023-02-08 0.9.7.1