Any way to get native language names from the list?

[mkinney]

For instance, in the README it shows this snippet:

for language in translator.get_source_languages():
    print(f"{language.code} ({language.name})")  # Example: "DE (German)"

It would be wonderful if the "native" translation of their language could be shown, too.

In other words, "DE (German)" would also print "Deutsch". Most of the languages I can figure out, but not really sure what the "ZH" equivalent would be.

I'm using the free api level, so I'm hoping that could be added to that level.

[daniel-jones-deepl]

Hi @mkinney, thanks for the question.

We don't have this information in the languages list. You could instead use the translator itself to translate the native language name:

Edited to add: warning, this approach to determine native names does not always yield correct results, see below.

for language in translator.get_source_languages():
    # Handle source language codes that are not accepted as target languages
    target_lang = "EN-US" if language.code == "EN" else ("PT-PT" if language.code == "PT" else language.code)
    native_name = translator.translate_text(language.name, source_lang="EN", target_lang=target_lang)
    print(f"{language.code} ({language.name}) - {native_name}")  # Example: "ZH (Chinese) - 中国"

Edited to add: After reviewing this code above, it might not work correctly in some cases. DeepL translates best when the input text includes context; translating singular words may lead to mistakes. The example above for Chinese "中国" has a closer meaning to "China" (the country). This approach might have similar problems for other languages due to the lack of context.

[mkinney]

That's great!

Do you want a PR to update the README example with that updated code snippet?

[daniel-jones-deepl]

I edited the message above after reviewing: the approach above is wrong in some cases e.g. Chinese. As the approach is flawed I would not add it to the README.

Coming back to your original question, it seems we don't have an easy way to get native language names. Some languages and/or UI frameworks (e.g. .NET) include a locale framework that defines native language names, but unfortunately after a cursory search I could not find something suitable in Python.

[mkinney]

Ok. I would be content with the list of languages in native language somewhere.

For context, this is what I’m using as a language picker in a list.

[daniel-jones-deepl]

Hi again, I do not have an update regarding our API, however this StackOverflow post might provide a good solution using the ICU Python package: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10405915/how-to-get-the-language-name-in-native-language.

[daniel-jones-deepl]

Hi @mkinney, the team discussed this topic: we won't add the native language names. Various platforms offer alternatives you can use to get the native names, for example ICU Python package above.