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How to translate a text using Translate

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Updated at September 18, 2025

To translate text, use the translate method.

Getting started

To authenticate under a service account, you can use an API key or an IAM token; to authenticate under a user account, you can only use an IAM token.

Get your account details for authentication in the Translate API:

  1. If you do not have a service account, create one.

  2. Assign the ai.translate.user role for the folder to the service account.

  3. Get the ID of the folder your service account was created in. Make sure to include the folder ID in the folderId field in the body of each request.

  4. Create an API key with the yc.ai.translate.execute scope.

    Provide the key in the Authorization header of each request in the following format:

    Authorization: Api-Key <API_key>

  1. Get the ID of any folder for which your account has the ai.translate.user role or higher. Make sure to include the folder ID in the folderId field in the body of each request.

  2. Get an IAM token for your Yandex account, federated account or service account.

    Provide the token in the Authorization header of each request in the following format:

    Authorization: Bearer <IAM_token>

Translating a text from any language

To translate a text from any supported language, provide it using the translate method:

To use the examples, install cURL.

The example below is intended to be run in MacOS and Linux. To run it in Windows, see how to work with Bash in Microsoft Windows.

This example shows how to translate two strings containing Hello and World into Russian. The text source language is recognized automatically.

  1. Create a file with the request body, e.g., body.json:

    {
    "folderId": "<folder_ID>",
    "texts": ["Hello", "World"],
    "targetLanguageCode": "ru"
}

    Where:

  2. Submit the file for translation by running the command:

    export API_KEY=<API_key>
curl \
  --request POST \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "Authorization: Api-Key ${API_KEY}" \
  --data '@<path_to_JSON_file>' \
  "https://translate.api.cloud.yandex.net/translate/v2/translate"

    Where API_KEY is the API key you got before you started. If you use an IAM token for authentication, change the Authorization header to "Authorization: Bearer <IAM_token>".

    The service will return the translated strings:

    {
    "translations": [
        {
        "text": "Привет",
        "detectedLanguageCode": "en"
        },
        {
        "text": "Мир",
        "detectedLanguageCode": "en"
        }
    ]
}

This example shows how to translate the following two lines of text into Russian: Hello and World. The text source language is recognized automatically.

Create a file with the request body, e.g., body.py:

import requests

# Parameters for authentication with an API key as a service account:
API_KEY = "<API_key>"
# Parameters for authentication with an IAM token:
# IAM_TOKEN = '<IAM_token>'
folder_id = "<folder_ID>"
target_language = "ru"
texts = ["Hello", "World"]

body = {
    "targetLanguageCode": target_language,
    "texts": texts,
    "folderId": folder_id,
}

headers = {
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
    # Parameters for authentication with an API key as a service account:
    "Authorization": "Api-Key {0}".format(API_KEY),
    # Parameters for authentication with an IAM token:
    # "Authorization": "Bearer {0}".format(IAM_TOKEN)
}

response = requests.post(
    "https://translate.api.cloud.yandex.net/translate/v2/translate",
    json=body,
    headers=headers,
)

print(response.text)

Where:

You can save your API key to a file. In which case specify the file path in the key_path variable:

body.py
import os
import requests

# Parameters for authentication with an API key as a service account:
key_path = "<API_key_file_path>"
# Parameters for authentication with an IAM token:
# token_path = '<IAM_token_file_path>'
folder_id = "<folder_ID>"
target_language = "ru"
texts = ["Hello", "World"]

# Parameters for authentication with an API key as a service account:
API_KEY = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), key_path)
with open(API_KEY) as f:
    API_KEY = f.read().strip()
# Parameters for authentication with an IAM token:
# IAM_TOKEN = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), token_path)
# with open(IAM_TOKEN) as f:
#     IAM_TOKEN = f.read().strip()

body = {
    "targetLanguageCode": target_language,
    "texts": texts,
    "folderId": folder_id,
}

headers = {
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
    # Parameters for authentication with an API key as a service account:
    "Authorization": "Api-Key {0}".format(API_KEY),
    # Parameters for authentication with an IAM token:
    # "Authorization": "Bearer {0}".format(IAM_TOKEN)
}

response = requests.post(
    "https://translate.api.cloud.yandex.net/translate/v2/translate",
    json=body,
    headers=headers,
)

print(response.text)

This example shows how to translate the following two lines of text into Russian: Hello and World. The source language of a text is recognized automatically.

Create a file with the request body, e.g., body.php:

<?php

// Parameters for authentication with an API key as a service account:
$API_KEY = '<API_key>';
// Parameters for authentication with an IAM token:
// $IAM_TOKEN = '<IAM_token>';
$folder_id = '<folder_ID>';
$target_language = 'ru';
$texts = ["Hello", "World"];

$url = 'https://translate.api.cloud.yandex.net/translate/v2/translate';

$headers = [
    'Content-Type: application/json',
    // Parameters for authentication with an API key as a service account:
    "Authorization: Api-Key $API_KEY"
    // Parameters for authentication with an IAM token:
    // "Authorization: Bearer $IAM_TOKEN"
];

$post_data = [
    "targetLanguageCode" => $target_language,
    "texts" => $texts,
    "folderId" => $folder_id,
];

$data_json = json_encode($post_data);

$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
// curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data_json);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, true);

$result = curl_exec($curl);

curl_close($curl);

var_dump($result);

?>

Where:

You can save your API key to a file. In which case specify the file path in the key_path variable:

body.php
<?php

// Parameters for authentication with an API key as a service account:
$key_path = '<API_key_file_path>';
// Parameters for authentication with an IAM token:
// $token_path = '<IAM_token_file_path>';
$folder_id = '<folder_ID>';
$target_language = 'ru';
$texts = ["Hello", "World"];

$url = 'https://translate.api.cloud.yandex.net/translate/v2/translate';

// Parameters for authentication with an API key as a service account:
$API_KEY = trim(file_get_contents(realpath($key_path)));
// Parameters for authentication with an IAM token:
// $IAM_TOKEN = trim(file_get_contents(realpath($token_path)));

$headers = [
    'Content-Type: application/json',
    // Parameters for authentication with an API key as a service account:
    "Authorization: Api-Key $API_KEY"
    // Parameters for authentication with an IAM token:
    // "Authorization: Bearer $IAM_TOKEN"
];

$post_data = [
    "targetLanguageCode" => $target_language,
    "texts" => $texts,
    "folderId" => $folder_id,
];

$data_json = json_encode($post_data);

$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
// curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data_json);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, true);

$result = curl_exec($curl);

curl_close($curl);

var_dump($result);

?>

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