trans(1) Command-line translator using Google Translate, Bing

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.
-L CODES, -list CODES
Print details of languages and exit. When specifying two or more language codes, concatenate them by plus sign "+".
-S, -list-engines
List available translation engines and exit.
-U, -upgrade
Check for upgrade of this program.

Translator options

-e ENGINE, -engine ENGINE
Specify the translation engine to use. (default: google)

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-bidi
Do not convert bidirectional texts.

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 Mac OS X, 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.

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
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.

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.

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

-l CODE, -hl CODE, -lang 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 $LANGUAGE, $LC_ALL, $LANG and $HOME_LANG.

-s CODE, -sl CODE, -source CODE, -from CODE
Specify the source language (the language of original text).

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 CODE, -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 $LANGUAGE, $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.

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.
HOME_LANG
Equivalent to option setting -lang.
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)
./.trans
Initialization script. (current directory)

AUTHORS

Mort Yao <[email protected]>.