Google Translate is a convenient tool for quick, high-quality text translation. However, the web version of the service is not very practical when you need to translate a large amount of spreadsheet data.
Having the ability to use Google Translate directly in Excel greatly simplifies text work, especially when dealing with large datasets. The !SEMTools add-in includes functions and procedures for translating text into popular languages right inside Excel.
Equivalent of the GOOGLETRANSLATE Function
!SEMTools offers the GTranslate function with a syntax similar to the GOOGLETRANSLATE function in Google Sheets:
=GTranslate(A1;"en";"es")
The function is available in the free version! Just install the trial version of !SEMTools Pro to use it.
The advantage of using the function in Excel is that it handles large volumes of text much better, whereas Google Sheets may freeze and stop returning translations after just a few dozen rows.
This uses the free API version, which means there are still limits on the number of rows and characters—but the limits are more generous.
The function supports all languages available in Google Translate. The complete list of language codes is at the end of this page.
One-Click Translation with Google Translate
In addition to functions, !SEMTools also provides procedures that let you translate text in just a few clicks. These are especially convenient for common tasks. Quick translation is available between English and six popular languages (and back) using the free web version of Google Translate—ideal for small amounts of text.
For translations between two foreign languages, there is a dedicated procedure with a choice of 12 popular languages, available in the full version (!SEMTools Pro).
Paid Google Translate API
If you use the free version heavily, you may hit its limits. In that case, you can connect to the paid Google Translate API. Google offers the first 500,000 characters free when you add a billing profile. After the free quota is used, Google’s pay-as-you-go pricing remains very affordable.
Paid API support in !SEMTools has been available since version 10.23.14 (February 2023) and is only included in the full version.
Activating the API Token
If you haven’t entered your personal API token, the procedures will notify you and the translation won’t run. !SEMTools has a dedicated menu option for token activation. Once your token is active, you can translate unlimited volumes of text—but you should monitor your free quota usage and any charges beyond it. You can track this in the Google Cloud dashboard.
After activation, the procedures will translate any amount of text. Just keep an eye on the initial 500,000-character quota and your ongoing usage—though Google’s rates are quite reasonable. All details are available in the Google Cloud dashboard.
How to Get a Token
To get a Google Translate API token, you’ll need to:
- Create a Google account
- Go to Google Cloud Console: https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/dashboard
- Create a project and enable billing (requires an international payment card)
- Activate the Cloud Translation API
- Find your API key in the Credentials section
Google Translate Language Codes
Below is the full list of supported language codes for Google Translate:
| Afrikaans | af | Galician | gl | Latin | la | Sesotho | st |
| Albanian | sq | Georgian | ka | Latvian | lv | Shona | sn |
| Amharic | am | German | de | Lithuanian | lt | Sindhi | sd |
| Arabic | ar | Greek | el | Luxembourgish | lb | Sinhala (Sinhalese) | si |
| Armenian | hy | Gujarati | gu | Macedonian | mk | Slovak | sk |
| Azerbaijani | az | Haitian Creole | ht | Malagasy | mg | Slovenian | sl |
| Basque | eu | Hausa | ha | Malay | ms | Somali | so |
| Belarusian | be | Hawaiian | haw (ISO-639-2) | Malayalam | ml | Spanish | es |
| Bengali | bn | Hebrew | he or iw | Maltese | mt | Sundanese | su |
| Bosnian | bs | Hindi | hi | Maori | mi | Swahili | sw |
| Bulgarian | bg | Hmong | hmn (ISO-639-2) | Marathi | mr | Swedish | sv |
| Catalan | ca | Hungarian | hu | Mongolian | mn | Tagalog (Filipino) | tl |
| Cebuano | ceb (ISO-639-2) | Icelandic | is | Myanmar (Burmese) | my | Tajik | tg |
| Chinese (Simplified) | zh-CN or zh (BCP-47) | Igbo | ig | Nepali | ne | Tamil | ta |
| Chinese (Traditional) | zh-TW (BCP-47) | Indonesian | id | Norwegian | no | Telugu | te |
| Corsican | co | Irish | ga | Nyanja (Chichewa) | ny | Thai | th |
| Croatian | hr | Italian | it | Pashto | ps | Turkish | tr |
| Czech | cs | Japanese | ja | Persian | fa | Ukrainian | uk |
| Danish | da | Javanese | jv | Polish | pl | Urdu | ur |
| Dutch | nl | Kannada | kn | Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil) | pt | Uzbek | uz |
| English | en | Kazakh | kk | Punjabi | pa | Vietnamese | vi |
| Esperanto | eo | Khmer | km | Romanian | ro | Welsh | cy |
| Estonian | et | Korean | ko | Russian | ru | Xhosa | xh |
| Finnish | fi | Kurdish | ku | Samoan | sm | Yiddish | yi |
| French | fr | Kyrgyz | ky | Scots Gaelic | gd | Yoruba | yo |
| Frisian | fy | Lao | lo | Serbian | sr | Zulu | zu |
See also:
Translate Text in Excel (overview article, all options)
Translate Text in Excel with DeepL
Want to translate text directly in Excel? Install !SEMTools and use built-in Google Translate functions to translate any amount of text into the language you need!