Romanize text

Romanization converts non-Latin script to Latin script. The Latin script is based on the pronunciation of the source language. For example, Cloud Translation romanizes the following Japanese characters こんにちは世界 into Kon'nichiwa sekai.

To see which languages can be romanized, see Supported languages.

Before you begin

Before you can start using the Cloud Translation API, you should complete the Cloud Translation setup page, which includes creating a project, enabling the Cloud Translation API, and setting up authentication. The setup page also provides instructions for installing client libraries for common programming languages, which is optional.

Romanize text

REST

Use the romanizeText method to convert non-Latin script into Latin script.

Before using any of the request data, make the following replacements:

PROJECT_NUMBER_OR_ID: the numeric or alphanumeric ID of your Google Cloud project
LOCATION: Region where you want to run this operation. For example, us-central1.
SOURCE_LANGUAGE: The language code of the source text.
SOURCE_TEXT: Text in the source language to romanize.

HTTP method and URL:

POST https://translation.googleapis.com/v3/projects/PROJECT_NUMBER_OR_ID/locations/LOCATION:romanizeText

Request JSON body:

{
  "source_language_code": "SOURCE_LANGUAGE",
  "contents": "SOURCE_TEXT"
}

To send your request, expand one of these options:

curl (Linux, macOS, or Cloud Shell)

Note: The following command assumes that you have logged in to the gcloud CLI with your user account by running gcloud init or gcloud auth login , or by using Cloud Shell, which automatically logs you into the gcloud CLI . You can check the currently active account by running gcloud auth list.

Save the request body in a file named request.json, and execute the following command:

curl -X POST \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \
     -H "x-goog-user-project: PROJECT_NUMBER_OR_ID" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8" \
     -d @request.json \
     "https://translation.googleapis.com/v3/projects/PROJECT_NUMBER_OR_ID/locations/LOCATION:romanizeText"

PowerShell (Windows)

Note: The following command assumes that you have logged in to the gcloud CLI with your user account by running gcloud init or gcloud auth login . You can check the currently active account by running gcloud auth list.

Save the request body in a file named request.json, and execute the following command:

$cred = gcloud auth print-access-token
$headers = @{ "Authorization" = "Bearer $cred"; "x-goog-user-project" = "PROJECT_NUMBER_OR_ID" }

Invoke-WebRequest `
    -Method POST `
    -Headers $headers `
    -ContentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8" `
    -InFile request.json `
    -Uri "https://translation.googleapis.com/v3/projects/PROJECT_NUMBER_OR_ID/locations/LOCATION:romanizeText" | Select-Object -Expand Content

You should receive a JSON response similar to the following:

{
  "romanizations": [
    {
      "romanizedText": "ROMANIZED_TEXT"
    }
  ]
}

What's next

Romanization is priced per character sent. For more information, see Pricing.