copyright

lastupdated

keywords

subcollection

years
2015, 2023

2023-05-03

translation models,list translation models,customizable models

language-translator

Supported languages for translation

{: #translation-models}

IBM is announcing the deprecation of the {{site.data.keyword.languagetranslatorfull}} service for {{site.data.keyword.cloud}} in all regions. As of 10 June 2023, the {{site.data.keyword.languagetranslatorshort}} tile will be removed from the {{site.data.keyword.cloud_notm}} Platform for new customers; only existing customers will be able to access the product. As of 10 June 2024, the service will reach its End of Support date. As of 10 December 2024, the service will be withdrawn entirely and will no longer be available to any customers. {: deprecated}

{{site.data.keyword.languagetranslatorfull}} supports a wide array of translatable languages. It also supports customization of many translation models. {: shortdesc}

Listing supported languages for translation

{: #list-languages}

You can use the List supported languages{: external} method to retrieve the list of supported languages for translation. The following example calls the method:

curl -X GET --user "apikey:{apikey}" \
"{url}/v3/languages?version=2018-05-01"

{: pre}

The method returns a complete list of all supported languages, sorted by language code (for example, af, ar). In addition to basic information about each language, the response indicates whether the language is supported_as_source for translation and supported_as_target for translation. It also lists whether the language is identifiable.

"languages": [
  {
    "language": "af",
    "language_name": "Afrikaans",
    "native_language_name": "Afrikaans",
    "country_code": "ZA",
    "words_separated": true,
    "direction": "left_to_right",
    "supported_as_source": false,
    "supported_as_target": false,
    "identifiable": true
  },
  {
    "language": "ar",
    "language_name": "Arabic",
    "native_language_name": "العربية",
    "country_code": "AR",
    "words_separated": true,
    "direction": "right_to_left",
    "supported_as_source": true,
    "supported_as_target": true,
    "identifiable": true
  },
  . . .
]

{: codeblock}

The list of support languages is long, reporting more than 75 languages.

List of supported languages

{: #list-languages-supported}

The following table list the translatable languages. The service can translate from the following languages to any other language in the list (with the exception of Basque and Catalan). The service correctly translates from and to bidirectional languages that are written left-to-right and right-to-left (for example, Arabic, Hebrew, and Urdu).

The service use ISO two-character codes for most languages. It uses an ISO three-character code (cnr) for Montenegrin. In some cases, it uses a two-character language code and a two-character country code separated by a hyphen, such as fr-CA for French Canadian, pa-PK for Punjabi spoken in Pakistan, and zh-TW for traditional (Mandarin) Chinese spoken in Taiwan.

Not all language combinations that are supported for translation are also customizable. Usually, only the combinations with English as source or target language are customizable. Click the name of a language to see the customizable translation models for that language.

Language	Language code	Language	Language code
Arabic	`ar`	Latvian	`lv`
Basque [1]	`eu`	Lithuanian	`lt`
Bengali	`bn`	Malay	`ms`
Bosnian	`bs`	Malayalam	`ml`
Bulgarian	`bg`	Maltese	`mt`
Catalan [1]	`ca`	Marathi	`mr`
Chinese (Simplified)	`zh`	Montenegrin [2]	`cnr`
Chinese (Traditional)	`zh-TW`	Nepali	`ne`
Croatian	`hr`	Norwegian Bokmål	`nb`
Czech	`cs`	Polish	`pl`
Danish	`da`	Portuguese	`pt`
Dutch	`nl`	Punjabi (Indian)	`pa`
English	`en`	Punjabi (Pakistani)	`pa-PK`
Estonian	`et`	Romanian	`ro`
Finnish	`fi`	Russian	`ru`
French	`fr`	Serbian [3]	`sr`
French (Canadian)	`fr`	Sinhala	`si`
German	`de`	Slovak	`sk`
Greek	`el`	Slovenian	`sl`
Gujarati	`gu`	Spanish	`es`
Hebrew	`he`	Swedish	`sv`
Hindi	`hi`	Tamil	`ta`
Hungarian	`hu`	Telugu	`te`
Irish	`ga`	Thai	`th`
Indonesian	`id`	Turkish	`tr`
Italian	`it`	Ukrainian	`uk`
Japanese	`ja`	Urdu	`ur`
Kannada	`kn`	Vietnamese	`vi`
Korean	`ko`	Welsh	`cy`
{: caption="Table 1. Translatable languages"}

Notes:

Basque and Catalan are supported only for translation to and from Spanish.
The translation models for Montenegrin are not customizable at this time.
Serbian translation support is based on the Cyrillic alphabet. (Bosnian, Croatian, and Montenegrin translation support is based on the Latin alphabet.)

Listing supported translation models for customization

{: #customizable-models}

You can use the List models{: external} method to view the available translation models and any custom models that you created. You can filter results by language with the source and target parameters. The following example lists models that can translate from English to Spanish.

curl -X GET --user "apikey:{apikey}" \
"{url}/v3/models?source=en&target=es&version=2018-05-01"

{: pre}

The method returns information about the en-es translation model that you can use to translate from English to Spanish. The model is customizable.

"models": [
  {
    "model_id": "en-es",
    "source": "en",
    "target": "es",
    "base_model_id": "",
    "domain": "general",
    "customizable": true,
    "default_model": true,
    "owner": "",
    "status": "available",
    "name": "en-es"
  },
]

{: codeblock}

List of customizable translation models

{: #customizable-models-supported}

The following sections list the customizable translation models for each language. As mentioned previously, not all language combinations that are supported for translation are also customizable. Typically, only language combinations with English as the source or target language are customizable.

Arabic

{: #arabic}

The following Arabic translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`ar-en`	Arabic (`ar`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 2. Arabic translation model"}

Basque

{: #basque}

The following Basque translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`eu-es`	Basque (`eu`)	Spanish (`es`)	general
{: caption="Table 3. Basque translation model"}

Bengali

{: #bengali}

The following Bengali translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`bn-en`	Bengali (`bn`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 4. Bengali translation model"}

Bosnian

{: #bosnian}

The following Bosnian translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`bs-en`	Bosnian (`bs`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 5. Bosnian translation model"}

Bulgarian

{: #bulgarian}

The following Bulgarian translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`bg-en`	Bulgarian (`bg`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 6. Bulgarian translation model"}

Catalan

{: #catalan}

The following Catalan translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`ca-es`	Catalan (`ca`)	Spanish (`es`)	general
{: caption="Table 7. Catalan translation model"}

Chinese (Simplified)

{: #chinese-simplified}

The following Chinese (Simplified) translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`zh-en`	Simplified Chinese (`zh`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 8. Simplified Chinese translation model"}

Chinese (Traditional)

{: #chinese-traditional}

The following Chinese (Traditional) translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`zh-TW-en`	Simplified Chinese (`zh-TW`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 9. Traditional Chinese translation model"}

Croatian

{: #croatian}

The following Croatian translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`hr-en`	Croatian (`hr`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 10. Croatian translation model"}

Czech

{: #czech}

The following Czech translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`cs-en`	Czech (`cs`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 11. Czech translation model"}

Danish

{: #danish}

The following Danish translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`da-en`	Danish (`da`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 12. Danish translation model"}

Dutch

{: #dutch}

The following Dutch translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`nl-en`	Dutch (`nl`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 13. Dutch translation model"}

English

{: #english}

The following English translation models can be customized.

The English-to-Montenegrin translation model (en-cnr) is not customizable at this time. It can be used for translation but cannot be customized. {: note}

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`en-ar`	English (`en`)	Arabic (`ar`)	general
`en-bg`	English (`en`)	Bulgarian (`bg`)	general
`en-bn`	English (`en`)	Bengali (`bn`)	general
`en-bs`	English (`en`)	Bosnian (`bs`)	general
`en-cnr`	English (`en`)	Montenegrin (`cnr`)	general
`en-cs`	English (`en`)	Czech (`cs`)	general
`en-cy`	English (`en`)	Welsh (`cy`)	general
`en-da`	English (`en`)	Danish (`da`)	general
`en-de`	English (`en`)	German (`de`)	general
`en-el`	English (`en`)	Greek (`el`)	general
`en-es`	English (`en`)	Spanish (`es`)	general
`en-et`	English (`en`)	Estonian (`et`)	general
`en-fi`	English (`en`)	Finnish (`fi`)	general
`en-fr`	English (`en`)	French (`fr`)	general
`en-fr-CA`	English (`en`)	Canadian French (`fr-CA`)	general
`en-ga`	English (`en`)	Irish (`ga`)	general
`en-gu`	English (`en`)	Gujarati (`gu`)	general
`en-he`	English (`en`)	Hebrew (`he`)	general
`en-hi`	English (`en`)	Hindi (`hi`)	general
`en-hr`	English (`en`)	Croatian (`hr`)	general
`en-hu`	English (`en`)	Hungarian (`hu`)	general
`en-id`	English (`en`)	Indonesian (`id`)	general
`en-it`	English (`en`)	Italian (`it`)	general
`en-ja`	English (`en`)	Japanese (`ja`)	general
`en-kn`	English (`en`)	Kannada (`kn`)	general
`en-ko`	English (`en`)	Korean (`ko`)	general
`en-lt`	English (`en`)	Lithuanian (`lt`)	general
`en-lv`	English (`en`)	Latvian (`lv`)	general
`en-ml`	English (`en`)	Malayalam (`ml`)	general
`en-mr`	English (`en`)	Marathi (`mr`)	general
`en-ms`	English (`en`)	Malay (`ms`)	general
`en-mt`	English (`en`)	Maltese (`mt`)	general
`en-ne`	English (`en`)	Nepali (`ne`)	general
`en-nb`	English (`en`)	Norwegian Bokmål (`nb`)	general
`en-nl`	English (`en`)	Dutch (`nl`)	general
`en-pa`	English (`en`)	Indian Punjabi (`pa`)	general
`en-pa-PK`	English (`en`)	Pakistani Punjabi (`pa-PK`)	general
`en-pl`	English (`en`)	Polish (`pl`)	general
`en-pt`	English (`en`)	Portuguese (`pt`)	general
`en-ro`	English (`en`)	Romanian (`ro`)	general
`en-ru`	English (`en`)	Russian (`ru`)	general
`en-si`	English (`en`)	Sinhala (`si`)	general
`en-sk`	English (`en`)	Slovak (`sk`)	general
`en-sl`	English (`en`)	Slovenian (`sl`)	general
`en-sr`	English (`en`)	Serbian (`sr`)	general
`en-sv`	English (`en`)	Swedish (`sv`)	general
`en-ta`	English (`en`)	Tamil (`ta`)	general
`en-te`	English (`en`)	Telugu (`te`)	general
`en-th`	English (`en`)	Thai (`th`)	general
`en-tr`	English (`en`)	Turkish (`tr`)	general
`en-uk`	English (`en`)	Ukrainian (`uk`)	general
`en-ur`	English (`en`)	Urdu (`ur`)	general
`en-vi`	English (`en`)	Vietnamese (`vi`)	general
`en-zh`	English (`en`)	Simplified Chinese (`zh`)	general
`en-zh-TW`	English (`en`)	Traditional Chinese (`zh-TW`)	general
{: caption="Table 14. English translation models"}

Estonian

{: #estonian}

The following Estonian translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`et-en`	Estonian (`et`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 15. Estonian translation model"}

Finnish

{: #finnish}

The following Finnish translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`fi-en`	Finnish (`fi`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 16. Finnish translation model"}

French

{: #french}

The following French translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`fr-en`	French (`fr`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 17. French translation model"}

French (Canadian)

{: #french-canadian}

The following French (Canadian) translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`fr-CA-en`	Canadian French (`fr-CA`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 18. Canadian French translation model"}

German

{: #german}

The following German translation models can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`de-en`	German (`de`)	English (`en`)	general
`de-fr`	German (`de`)	French (`fr`)	general
`de-it`	German (`de`)	Italian (`it`)	general
{: caption="Table 19. German translation models"}

Greek

{: #greek}

The following Greek translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`el-en`	Greek (`el`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 20. Greek translation model"}

Gujarati

{: #gujarati}

The following Gujarati translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`gu-en`	Gujarati (`gu`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 21. Gujarati translation model"}

Hebrew

{: #hebrew}

The following Hebrew translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`he-en`	Hebrew (`he`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 22. Hebrew translation model"}

Hindi

{: #hindi}

The following Hindi translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`hi-en`	Hindi (`hi`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 23. Hindi translation model"}

Hungarian

{: #hungarian}

The following Hungarian translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`hu-en`	Hungarian (`hu`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 24. Hungarian translation model"}

Indonesian

{: #indonesian}

The following Indonesian translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`id-en`	Indonesian (`id`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 25. Indonesian translation model"}

Irish

{: #irish}

The following Irish translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`ga-en`	Irish (`ga`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 26. Irish translation model"}

Italian

{: #italian}

The following Italian translation models can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`it-de`	Italian (`it`)	German (`de`)	general
`it-en`	Italian (`it`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 27. Italian translation models"}

Japanese

{: #japanese}

The following Japanese translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`ja-en`	Japanese (`ja`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 28. Japanese translation model"}

Kannada

{: #kannada}

The following Kannada translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`kn-en`	Kannada (`kn`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 29. Kannada translation model"}

Korean

{: #korean}

The following Korean translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`ko-en`	Korean (`ko`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 30. Korean translation model"}

Latvian

{: #latvian}

The following Latvian translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`lv-en`	Latvian (`lv`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 31. Latvian translation model"}

Lithuanian

{: #lithuanian}

The following Lithuanian translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`lt-en`	Lithuanian (`lt`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 32. Lithuanian translation model"}

Malay

{: #malay}

The following Malay translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`ms-en`	Malay (`ms`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 33. Malay translation model"}

Malayalam

{: #malayalam}

The following Malayalam translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`ml-en`	Malayalam (`ml`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 34. Malayalam translation model"}

Maltese

{: #maltese}

The following Maltese translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`mt-en`	Maltese (`mt`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 35. Maltese translation model"}

Marathi

{: #marathi}

The following Marathi translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`mr-en`	Marathi (`mr`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 36. Marathi translation model"}

Montenegrin

{: #montenegrin}

The following Montenegrin translation model cannot be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`cnr-en`	Montenegrin (`cnr`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 37. Montenegrin translation model"}

The Montenegrin-to-English translation model (cnr-en) is not customizable at this time. It can be used for translation but cannot be customized. {: note}

Nepali

{: #nepali}

The following Nepali translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`ne-en`	Nepali (`ne`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 38. Nepali translation model"}

Norwegian Bokmål

{: #norwegian-bokmal}

The following Norwegian Bokmål translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`nb-en`	Norwegian Bokmål (`nb`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 39. Norwegian Bokmål translation model"}

Polish

{: #polish}

The following Polish translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`pl-en`	Polish (`pl`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 40. Polish translation model"}

Portuguese

{: #portuguese}

The following Portuguese translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`pt-en`	Portuguese (`pt`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 41. Portuguese translation model"}

Punjabi (Indian)

{: #punjabi-india}

The following Indian Punjabi translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`pa-en`	Indian Punjabi (`pa`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 42. Indian Punjabi translation model"}

Punjabi (Pakistani)

{: #punjabi-pakistan}

The following Pakistani Punjabi (Shahmukhi script) translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`pa-PK-en`	Pakistani Punjabi (`pa-PK`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 43. Pakistani Punjabi translation model"}

Romanian

{: #romanian}

The following Romanian translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`ro-en`	Romanian (`ro`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 44. Romanian translation model"}

Russian

{: #russian}

The following Russian translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`ru-en`	Russian (`ru`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 45. Russian translation model"}

Serbian

{: #serbian}

The following Serbian translation model can be customized. The service supports translation for Serbian based on the Cyrillic alphabet, not the Latin alphabet.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`sr-en`	Serbian (`sr`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 46. Serbian translation model"}

Sinhala

{: #sinhala}

The following Sinhala translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`si-en`	Sinhala (`si`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 47. Sinhala translation model"}

Slovak

{: #slovak}

The following Slovak translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`sk-en`	Slovak (`sk`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 48. Slovak translation model"}

Slovenian

{: #slovenian}

The following Slovenian translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`sl-en`	Slovenian (`sl`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 49. Slovenian translation model"}

Spanish

{: #spanish}

The following Spanish translation models can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`es-ca`	Spanish (`es`)	Catalan (`ca`)	general
`es-en`	Spanish (`es`)	English (`en`)	general
`es-fr`	Spanish (`es`)	French (`fr`)	general
`es-eu`	Spanish (`es`)	Basque (`eu`)	general
{: caption="Table 50. Spanish translation models"}

Swedish

{: #swedish}

The following Swedish translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`sv-en`	Swedish (`sv`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 51. Swedish translation model"}

Tamil

{: #tamil}

The following Tamil translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`ta-en`	Tamil (`ta`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 52. Tamil translation model"}

Telugu

{: #telugu}

The following Telugu translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`te-en`	Telugu (`te`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 53. Telugu translation model"}

Thai

{: #thai}

The following Thai translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`th-en`	Thai (`th`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 54. Thai translation model"}

Turkish

{: #turkish}

The following Turkish translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`tr-en`	Turkish (`tr`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 55. Turkish translation model"}

Ukrainian

{: #ukrainian}

The following Ukrainian translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`uk-en`	Ukrainian (`uk`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 56. Ukrainian translation model"}

Urdu

{: #urdu}

The following Urdu translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`ur-en`	Urdu (`ur`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 57. Urdu translation model"}

Vietnamese

{: #vietnamese}

The following Vietnamese translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`vi-en`	Vietnamese (`vi`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 58. Vietnamese translation model"}

Welsh

{: #welsh}

The following Welsh translation model can be customized.

Model ID	Source	Target	Domain
`cy-en`	Welsh (`cy`)	English (`en`)	general
{: caption="Table 59. Welsh translation model"}

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