Translate and localize your app

To provide a localized experience for your users around the world, you can add translations for your app's store listing page, APK files, strings, or in-app products. You can add them yourself or purchase and apply them through Play Console. You can also use Play Console's free machine translation service to translate your app into select languages.

Add translations for your app

If a user's language preference matches the translation languages you've added, they'll see the translated version of your app. You can also add localized graphic assets for your store listing pages.

If you add text translations without localized graphic assets, your app's graphic assets will be shown from the default language.

Note: Store listing localization is one of two ways that Play Console can help you deliver differentiated experiences to users in different locations. To deliver different store listings by country/region (versus language), we recommend creating custom store listings.

Add your own text translations and localized graphic assets
  1. Open Play Console and go to Translation service page (Grow users > Store presence > Translation service).
  2. At the top of the page, click Add translations, and select Add your own translation text on the drop-down menu.
    • Note: If you’ve already added translations before, you’ll see Manage translations and Manage your own translation text on the drop-down menu.
  3. Under “Add or remove languages,” select the languages you want to add to the list. 
  4. Click Apply.
  5. Save your changes.
View list of available languages

If you're adding your own translations, you can do so in the following languages:

  • Afrikaans – af
  • Albanian – sq
  • Amharic – am
  • Arabic – ar
  • Armenian – hy-AM
  • Azerbaijani – az-AZ
  • Bangla – bn-BD
  • Basque – eu-ES
  • Belarusian – be
  • Bulgarian – bg
  • Burmese – my-MM
  • Catalan – ca
  • Chinese (Hong Kong) – zh-HK
  • Chinese (Simplified) – zh-CN
  • Chinese (Traditional) – zh-TW
  • Croatian – hr
  • Czech – cs-CZ
  • Danish – da-DK
  • Dutch – nl-NL
  • English – en-IN
  • English – en-SG
  • English – en-ZA
  • English (Australia) – en-AU
  • English (Canada) – en-CA
  • English (United Kingdom) – en-GB
  • English (United States) – en-US
  • Estonian – et
  • Filipino – fil
  • Finnish – fi-FI
  • French (Canada) – fr-CA
  • French (France) – fr-FR
  • Galician – gl-ES
  • Georgian – ka-GE
  • German – de-DE
  • Greek – el-GR
  • Gujarati – gu
  • Hebrew – iw-IL
  • Hindi – hi-IN
  • Hungarian – hu-HU
  • Icelandic – is-IS
  • Indonesian – id
  • Italian – it-IT
  • Japanese – ja-JP
  • Kannada – kn-IN
  • Kazakh – kk
  • Khmer – km-KH
  • Korean – ko-KR
  • Kyrgyz – ky-KG
  • Lao – lo-LA
  • Latvian – lv
  • Lithuanian – lt
  • Macedonian – mk-MK
  • Malay – ms
  • Malay (Malaysia) – ms-MY
  • Malayalam – ml-IN
  • Marathi – mr-IN
  • Mongolian – mn-MN
  • Nepali – ne-NP
  • Norwegian – no-NO
  • Persian – fa
  • Persian – fa-AE
  • Persian – fa-AF
  • Persian – fa-IR
  • Polish – pl-PL
  • Portuguese (Brazil) – pt-BR
  • Portuguese (Portugal) – pt-PT
  • Punjabi – pa
  • Romanian – ro
  • Romansh – rm
  • Russian – ru-RU
  • Serbian – sr
  • Sinhala – si-LK
  • Slovak – sk
  • Slovenian – sl
  • Spanish (Latin America) – es-419
  • Spanish (Spain) – es-ES
  • Spanish (United States) – es-US
  • Swahili – sw
  • Swedish – sv-SE
  • Tamil – ta-IN
  • Telugu – te-IN
  • Thai – th
  • Turkish – tr-TR
  • Ukrainian – uk
  • Urdu – ur
  • Vietnamese – vi
  • Zulu – zu
Purchase and apply human translations

Purchase translations

Using our paid human translation service, you can order high-quality translations for your app strings, store listing, and in-app products from a professional third-party vendor. Ordering takes minutes, costs as little as USD 0.07 per word, and translations are completed within seven days.

Notes:

  • You'll work directly with the vendor to manage translations and address any support issues.
  • Translations aren't available for all source and target language combinations.

To purchase translations through Play Console:

  1. Open Play Console and go to the Translation service page (Grow users > Store presence > Translation service).
  2. Click Create translations.
  3. Choose Paid human translation as your translation type.
  4. In the "Select Languages" section: 
    • Specify the source language used in your original text.
    • Select your target languages for translation. 
    • When you’re finished selecting your languages, click Next.
  5. In the "Select what to translate" section, select the items you want to translate:
    • Store listing: Provide the title, short description, and full description of your app as shown to users on Google Play.
    • App strings: Add text from your app as an XML or CSV file.
    • In-app products: Provide the title and description of your in-app products.
    • Additional information: Add screenshots or other documentation as a GIF, JPEG, PNG, or ZIP file. Adding a screenshot gives linguists context on how the text is displayed in your app.
    • Reuse translated strings from previous orders: Check the box to reuse strings that have already been translated to save money. You’ll only be charged for any new translations, and you’ll see the total price before placing your order.
    • When you’re finished selecting what you want to translate, click Review order.

      Notes: 
    • As you make your selections, the estimated price will update near the top right of the page. You can click View details for a breakdown of the estimate, including the languages, price per word, and total. 
    • You can click View other providers for a list of other translation providers and their prices.
       
  6. In the "Review and pay" section: 
    • Review your translation order summary and remove any items you don’t want. 
    • Note your expected completion date.
    • Enter a voucher code if you have one.
  7. Click Confirm and pay to complete your order. You’ll receive a payment confirmation email, and you’ll receive another email when your translations are complete.

Apply translations

After your translations are completed, here's how to apply your translations:

  1. Open Play Console and go to the Translation service page (Grow users > Store presence > Translation service).
  2. In the table, select the row for the language you want to apply. 
  3. Click Download to save your translation file locally.
  4. Next to the language you want to apply, click Apply.

Once you've added translations for your app's strings, you can upload the translated APK file to Google Play. If a user's language preference matches the translation languages you've added, they'll see the translated version.

Use Play Console's free machine translation service

Using our free machine translation service, you can order instant, high-quality machine translations for your app strings, store listing, and in-app products. Using machine translations is a great way to quickly add high-quality translations to better serve your app's international users at no cost.

 The following languages are available (we're working on adding more languages in the future):

  • Arabic – ar
  • French (France) – fr-FR
  • German – de-DE
  • Indonesian – id
  • Italian – it-IT
  • Japanese – ja-JP
  • Portuguese (Brazil) – pt-BR
  • Spanish (Latin America) – es-419
  • Spanish (Spain) – es-ES
  • Thai – th

Important: As these are machine translations, they are not reviewed or approved by humans.

To add free machine translations in Play Console:

  1. Open Play Console and go to the Translation service page (Grow users > Store presence > Translation service).
  2. Click Create translations.
  3. Choose Free machine translation as your translation type.
  4. In the "Select Languages" section: 
    • Specify the source language used in your original text.
    • Select your target languages for translation. 
    • When you’re finished selecting your languages, click Next.
  5. In the "Select what to translate" section, select the items you want to translate:
    • Store listing: Provide the title, short description, and full description of your app as shown to users on Google Play.
    • App strings: Add text from your app as an XML or CSV file.
    • In-app products: Provide the title and description of your in-app products.
    • When you’re finished selecting what you want to translate, click View translations.
  6. On the Translations services page, click Review and apply to review and apply your store listing text and in-app product translations. If you don't want to make any changes,, just click Apply without making any changes to the machine-translated text. You can also download your machine-translated strings from the Translation services page.
If you don't add or purchase translations

While it's best to use translations by native speakers, automated translations of your app's store listing will be available to Google Play users.

If users visit your app's store listing on Google Play in a language that you haven't translated, they can choose to view an automated translation of your app's page. Near the top of the page, there will be a notification that explains the translation has been done automatically, along with an option to view the store listing in its default language instead.

Note: Automated translations aren't available in Armenian, Raeto-romance, Tagalog, and Zulu.

Language recommendations

In some cases, you may notice a banner in Play Console with translation recommendations that are likely to increase installs. 

When enough data is available, these recommendations will be based on the following:

  • Your app’s current install distribution for each language is compared with other apps in the same category.
  • Your app’s current install growth for each language is compared with other apps in the same category.
  • Your app’s category and the language preferences for that category.
  • Your app’s current conversion rate for each language.
  • The potential market for each language.

Updated translations

If you're submitting a translation request for an app with previous translations, keep in mind:

  • You should translate any text that's been updated since the previous release. You don’t need to submit previously translated strings.
  • When you place an order, we compare the text with your previous orders. Any existing text will be excluded from the order so you only pay for the new text.
  • If you'd like to submit all text for translation (including previously translated strings), uncheck the box next to "Reuse translated strings from previous orders" on the Select what to translate page when purchasing your translation.

Check order status

To check the status of your translation purchases:

  1. Open Play Console and go to the Translation service page (Grow users > Store presence > Translation service).
  2. For each order, you'll see the date of purchase, requested languages, status, and the price paid. You can select a row to view more details.

Contact translation vendor

To contact your translation vendor:

  1. Open Play Console and go to the Translation service page (Grow users > Store presence > Translation service).
  2. Next to your order, click the three dots icon  > Contact service provider.

View or check your translations

To view your app in another language and check your app's translations, you'll need to change the language on your Android device. To do this:

  1. On your device, open the Settings app .
  2. Select Language and input > Language.
  3. Select the language you want to view.
  4. Review your app.

Request a VAT invoice

If you need a Value-Added Tax (VAT) invoice for your translation order, go to the Google payments Help Center.

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