Roblox UtilitiesDevlHub Roblox Documentation

Class

Translator

NotCreatableNotReplicated
Inherits
Instance › Object
Memory category
Instances

The role of a Translator is to manufacture/return strings localized for the viewing player.

The role of a Translator is to manufacture/return strings localized for the viewing player. It can be used to retrieve display-ready localized text from a LocalizationTable. The source of the Translator.LocaleId property, the set of tables it will search, and the order it will search them in depends on which method was used to create the Translator instance.

The input for a Translator is the original development language string and a context, where all or part of the context can be used to find a more precise/situational translation for the source string.

The Translator can also be used to manufacture translated strings with inserts (data replacements) which may change order based on the target language.

Properties 1#

LocaleIdstringThe locale of translated strings.ReadSafeReadOnlyNotReplicated

LocaleId: string#

ReadOnlyNotReplicatedReadSafe

The Roblox locale of the output translated strings from this table, for example "en-us" or "es-es." Defaults to "en-us".

Methods 2#

FormatByKeyReturns the localized text string in a LocalizationTable based on its Translator locale, by key.
TranslateReturns the localized text string in a LocalizationTable based on its Translator locale, by source lookup.

FormatByKey(key: string, args: Variant): string#

Returns the localized text string in a LocalizationTable based on its Translator locale, by key. The optional args table is used for filling format parameters in the matching text entry.

Note that this method will throw an error in the following cases:

  • If none of the LocalizationTables available to this Translator include a value for the given key.
  • If the format string for the key uses numbered parameters and args is not an array.
  • If the format string uses named parameters and args is not a table of key-value pairs.
  • If args is missing values for parameters that are used in the matching format string.

See Localize with scripting for more details and usage examples of this function.

NameTypeDefaultDescription
keystringThe Key value to look up and translate.
argsVariantTo be provided if the Source text and translations contain format strings. Will be a Luau table of values or key-value pairs, depending on whether the format strings are numbered or named.
Returns
  • string — The localized text string associated with the given key, with any format parameters filled in from args.

Translate(context: Instance, text: string): string#

Returns the localized text string in a LocalizationTable based on its Translator locale. This string will be in the context of the provided object, given the provided Source text.

See Localize with scripting for more details and usage examples of this function.

Context Overrides#

In some cases, duplicate Source strings may have completely different translations in other languages. For example, the English noun "Screen" can indicate both a computer screen and a window screen, but the Spanish translations are completely different:

A B C D E
Key Context Source Example es
Screen Pantalla
Screen Mosquitero

In these cases, the first argument to this function — a valid in-game Instance — can be used as a "tie breaker" when multiple GUI objects use the same source string. To implement this, specify the "path" to the Instance you'd like to override as the Context value of the translation data:

A B C D E
Key Context Source Example es
workspace.ComputerScreen.SurfaceGui.TextLabel Screen Pantalla
Screen Mosquitero

Then, when calling this function in a script, pass the same Instance as the first argument, followed by the Source lookup text as the second argument:

NameTypeDefaultDescription
contextInstanceA valid in-game Instance to use for context override as outlined above. Note that this argument can be arbitrary, for example game, if you don't require a context override.
textstringThe Source text to look up and translate.
Returns
  • string — The translated text.

Inherited members#

Inherited from Instance 58
Inherited from Object 6
Properties (2)

ClassName, className

Events (1)

Changed