Translation

A simple iOS library for Google translation APIs.

Quick Start (Google)

Objective-C

ICTTranslation *translation = [[ICTTranslation alloc] initWithGoogleAPIKey:<GOOGLE_API_KEY>];
[translation translateText:@"Bonjour" completion:^(NSError * _Nullable error, NSString * _Nullable translated, NSString * _Nullable sourceLanguage) {
        NSLog(@"error -> %@", error);
        NSLog(@"translated -> %@", translated);
        NSLog(@"sourceLanguage -> %@", sourceLanguage);
    }];

Swift

let translation = Translation(googleAPIKey: <GOOGLE_API_KEY>)
translation.translate(text: "Bonjour") { (error, translated, sourceLanguage) in
	print(error.debugDescription as Any)
        print(translated as Any)
        print(sourceLanguage as Any)
}

Demo

1. Go to the Demo directory.
2. Open the .xcworkspace (not the .xcodeproj!) file.
3. Install Cocoapod
4. Run the app.

Adding Translation to Your Project

CocoaPods

CocoaPods is a dependency manager for Objective-C, which automates and simplifies the process of using 3rd-party libraries like Translation in your projects.

platform :ios, '8.0'
pod "Translation"

Source Files

Alternatively you can directly add the Translation folder to your project. Translation uses AFNetworking - your project needs this for it to work if you include it this way. CocoaPods install manages this dependency for you.

Usage

Import to your project

Objective-C

#import <Translation/Translation.h>

Swift

Please import to the Swift Bridging Header file. Folow some steps to create this file.

#import <Translation/Translation.h>

Initialize with Google...

Objective-C

ICTTranslation *translation = [[ICTTranslation alloc] initWithGoogleAPIKey:<GOOGLE_API_KEY>];

Swift

let translation = Translation(googleAPIKey: <GOOGLE_API_KEY>)

Translate

Objective-C

[translation translateText:@"Bonjour" completion:^(NSError * _Nullable error, NSString * _Nullable translated, NSString * _Nullable sourceLanguage) {
        NSLog(@"error -> %@", error);
        NSLog(@"translated -> %@", translated);
        NSLog(@"sourceLanguage -> %@", sourceLanguage);
 }];

Swift

translation.translate(text: "Bonjour") { (error, translated, sourceLanguage) in
            print(error.debugDescription as Any)
            print(translated as Any)
            print(sourceLanguage as Any)
}

Note that translations are one-shot operations. You need to instantiate a new Translation object for each translation.

Detect Language

Detects the language and returns its ISO language code as the detectedSource parameter.

If initialized with Google, the completion handler also returns a float between 0 and 1 indicating the confidence of the match, with 1 being the highest confidence. This is not supported with Bing translate and will always returns ICTTranslationUnknownConfidence.

Objective-C

[detectLanguage detectLanguage:@"問題" completion:^(NSError * _Nullable error, NSString * _Nullable detectedSource, float confidence) {
	NSLog(@"error -> %@", error);
	NSLog(@"translated -> %@", detectedSource);
	NSLog(@"sourceLanguage -> %f", confidence);
}];

Swift

detectLanguage.detectLanguage(text: "問題") { (error, detectLanguage, val) in
    print(error.debugDescription as Any)
    print(detectLanguage as Any)
    print(val as Any)
}

Get a List of Supported Languages

Google supports different languages. You can get a list of supported ISO language codes with the following function:

Objective-C

[langs supportedLanguages:^(NSError * _Nonnull error, NSArray * _Nonnull languageCodes) {
     NSLog(@"translated -> %@", languageCodes);
 }];

Swift

langs.supportedLanguages { (error, langs) in
     print(langs as Any)
}

Fancy Stuff

Specify Source or Target Language

The basic translation function makes a guess at the source language and specifies the target language based on the user's phone settings:

Objective-C

- (void)translateText:(NSString *)text
               target:(nullable NSString *)target
           completion:(ICTTranslationCompletionHandler)completion;

Swift

func translate(text: String, _ completion: (Error?, String?, String?)-> Void) -> Void

You can specify the source and/or the target languages if desired:

Objective-C

- (void)translateText:(NSString *)text
           withSource:(nullable NSString *)source
               target:(nullable NSString *)target
           completion:(ICTTranslationCompletionHandler)completion;

Swift

func translate(text: String, source: String, target: String, _ completion: (Error?, String?, String?)-> Void) -> Void

Disable Smart Guessing

Usually you don't know the source language to translate from. Going by user's iPhone locale or keyboard language settings seems like the obvious answer, but it is unreliable: there's nothing stopping you from typing Hola amigo! with an English keyboard. This is common, especially with international users.

For this reason Translation will ignore the passed-in source parameter in the above function, if it determines a good guess can be made. Typically this means that the text parameter is complex and long enough for the engine to reliably determine the language. Short string snippets will typically respect the passed-in source parameter, if any.

To force Translation to always respect the source parameter, use the following property:

Objective-C

translation.preferSourceGuess = false;

Swift

translation.preferSourceGuess = false

Note: Unless you definitely know the source language, I recommend leaving smart guessing on AND passing the source parameter if available as a hint to the language detector.

User Throttles (Google Only)

For Google Translate, you can throttle usage on a per-user/device basis by setting a specific user identifier property in the Translation instance. See the specific Google documentation for more information.

Objective-C

@property (nonatomic, nullable) NSString *quotaUser;

Swift

var quotaUser: String?

Cancel a Translation In Progress

Objective-C

- (void)cancel;

Swift

func cancel() -> Void

Contact

Have a question or an issue about Translation? Create an issue!

Attributions

Translation uses the following projects:

• PINCache
• AFNetworking
  • I also cribbed some parts of the README. Great job explaining CocoaPods usage guys!

License

Translation is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.

Inspiration

Inspired by FGTranslator 👈 💯