Google Translation API

Has anyone used Google translation API ? What is the max length limit for using it?

From stackoverflow

• 500 characters

  source

  Ken Browning : it could be. i just googled for you. i have never used the service.

  duffymo : Wrong. See the comment in the link you cited right under the one that quoted 500 chars.

  Ken Browning : I don't argue that I might be wrong. However, that comment is talking about a wrapper which removes character limitations. Apples and oranges imho.

• I've used it to translate Japanese to English.

  I don't believe the 500 char limit is true if you use http://code.google.com/p/jquery-translate/, but one thing that is true is you're restricted as to the number of requests you can make within a certain period of time. They also try to detect whether or not you're sending a lot of requests with a similar period, almost like a mini "denial of service" attack.

  So when I did this I wrote a client with a random length sleep between requests. I also ran it on a grid so all the requests didn't come from a single IP address.

  I had to translate ~2000 Java messages from a resource bundle from Japanese to English. It worked out pretty nicely, as long as the text was single words. Longer phrases with context came out awkwardly.

• The limit was 500... now it is 5000 chars.