Translate a foreign-language recipe or instruction manual with Hugging Face's free translator

Open the Hugging Face translation page

In your browser's address bar, type huggingface.co/tasks/translation and press Enter. A page loads with the title "Translation" and a short explanation of what the tool does, plus a demo box in the middle of the screen. The demo has two text areas — one on the left for the text you want translated, and one on the right where the English (or your chosen language) will appear.

If that exact URL doesn't work on your device, search "Hugging Face translation" in Google, or go to huggingface.co first, then look for a "Tasks" link in the top menu and choose "Translation" from the list. Sites get reorganized now and then, so a small detour is normal.

You'll know it worked when you see a page titled "Translation" with two text boxes sitting side by side.

Choose your language pair

Look just above or below the text boxes for two dropdown menus — one labeled something like "Source language" (the language your text is written in) and one labeled "Target language" (the language you want). The default is often English-to-something, so you'll likely need to change the source.

Click the source-language dropdown and scroll until you find the language of your text — Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Korean, and many more are listed. Then make sure the target language is set to English. If you don't see your language listed, that's the cue for Step 3.

If your screen shows only one dropdown, or the language names appear as codes like "es" or "fr" instead of full names, that's fine — the codes follow the international standard: es is Spanish, fr is French, de is German, ja is Japanese, zh is Chinese, ko is Korean, pt is Portuguese, it is Italian, ru is Russian.

You'll know it worked when both dropdowns show the pair you want — for example, "Spanish → English" — and the text boxes are still empty and ready for you.

Pick a different model if your language is missing

Below the language dropdowns, you may see another selector labeled "Model" with a default choice already filled in (often something starting with "Helsinki-NLP" or "facebook/nllb"). The default usually works well for common European languages. If your language wasn't in the dropdowns, or the default gives you poor results, click this dropdown and pick a different one.

The most beginner-friendly choice for rare or non-European languages is "facebook/nllb-200-distilled-600M" — it's been trained on around 200 languages, so it usually covers whatever you throw at it. For common pairs like Spanish-English or French-English, the lighter "Helsinki-NLP/opus-mt" models tend to be quick and clear.

If you only see one dropdown and no model selector at all, skip this step — the page has already picked a sensible default for the language pair you chose in Step 2.

You'll know it worked when a model name appears in a small label like "Model:" or in a gray bar above the boxes, and both text boxes are still visible.

Paste your foreign-language text

Click inside the left text box — the one labeled something like "Input" or sitting under the source language. The cursor blinks. Now grab the text you want translated. If it's on a website, select it with your mouse, right-click and choose Copy, then come back here and right-click inside the box and choose Paste. If it's in a PDF or on paper, you may need to type it out, or use your phone's camera to capture it first.

For best results, paste a reasonable chunk at a time — about one paragraph or one recipe step. Most of these models work best on one to five sentences; longer blocks can confuse them and slow the page down. If your text is very long, break it into pieces and translate one piece at a time.

If the translation feels slow or never appears, it usually means the server is busy — wait ten seconds and try again, or refresh the page and paste a shorter piece.

You'll know it worked when the pasted text shows up in the left box, with accents and special characters preserved exactly as in the original.

Click translate (or watch it auto-translate)

Some pages have a button labeled "Translate," "Compute," or a small arrow icon between the boxes. Click it once. Other pages translate automatically the moment you stop typing or pasting — there is no button at all. Either way, give it a few seconds.

The right box — usually labeled "Output" or sitting under the target language — fills in with the English version. Below or beside it, you may see a small note like "Generated in 1.2 seconds" or the name of the model that did the work.

If you see an error message instead of a translation, the most common cause is a language pair the current model doesn't support — go back to Step 3 and pick a different model, or check that the source language matches what you actually pasted (don't paste Spanish if the dropdown still says French).

You'll know it worked when the right box shows readable English that matches the meaning of what you pasted — even if a word or two come out a little off.

Copy the result and use it

Click inside the right box and drag your mouse across the English text to highlight it all. Press Ctrl+C on Windows or Cmd+C on Mac to copy. Now open a Notes app, an email, or a recipe site and paste (Ctrl+V / Cmd+V) the translation where you need it.

For a long recipe or manual, repeat Steps 4 and 5 for each section. Keep the original and the English side by side in your notes — that way you can compare and spot anything that looks wrong.

If a sentence comes out awkward, try rephrasing the original slightly before pasting it back. Small wording changes in the source language often give the model a clearer path to a good English translation.

You'll know it worked when you have a clean English version of your recipe or manual in your notes, ready to read.