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This guide walks you through translating your first Laravel language file using AI Translations.

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Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have:
  • Installed the package via Composer
  • Configured your LLM provider (Anthropic or OpenAI)
  • At least one existing language file in your Laravel project

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Step-by-Step Translation

1

Check Your Source Language Files

First, let’s verify what translation files you have in your source language (e.g., English).
ls lang/en/
You should see files like:
auth.php
validation.php
messages.php
2

Review Your Source Translation File

Let’s look at an example source file lang/en/messages.php:
lang/en/messages.php
<?php

return [
    'welcome' => 'Welcome to our application',
    'goodbye' => 'Thank you for using our service',
    'notifications' => [
        'new_message' => 'You have a new message',
        'account_updated' => 'Your account has been updated',
    ],
    'errors' => [
        'not_found' => 'The requested resource was not found',
        'unauthorized' => 'You are not authorized to access this resource',
    ],
];
3

Run Your First Translation

Now let’s translate the messages.php file to Spanish. Run:
php artisan translate --name=messages --language=es
You’ll see output like this:
AI Translator
Source: en
Languages: es
Domains: messages

Translating from en to es: messages
5 missing keys found: welcome, goodbye, notifications.new_message, notifications.account_updated, errors.not_found, errors.unauthorized

Translating in 1 chunks... (attempt #1 of 3)
████████████████████ 100%

Generated translations for messages from en to es:
welcome: "Bienvenido a nuestra aplicación"
goodbye: "Gracias por usar nuestro servicio"
notifications.new_message: "Tienes un nuevo mensaje"
notifications.account_updated: "Tu cuenta ha sido actualizada"
errors.not_found: "El recurso solicitado no fue encontrado"
errors.unauthorized: "No estás autorizado para acceder a este recurso"

Writing translations for messages from en to es
4

Verify the Generated File

Check the newly created Spanish translation file:
cat lang/es/messages.php
The generated file will look like:
lang/es/messages.php
<?php

return [
    'welcome' => 'Bienvenido a nuestra aplicación',
    'goodbye' => 'Gracias por usar nuestro servicio',
    'notifications' => [
        'new_message' => 'Tienes un nuevo mensaje',
        'account_updated' => 'Tu cuenta ha sido actualizada',
    ],
    'errors' => [
        'not_found' => 'El recurso solicitado no fue encontrado',
        'unauthorized' => 'No estás autorizado para acceder a este recurso',
    ],
];
5

Validate Your Translations

Finally, validate that all keys have been translated:
php artisan translate:validate --name=messages --language=es
You should see:
Checking translations...
Source: en
Languages: es
Domains: messages

+-------------+--------------+
| Domain      | Missing Keys |
+-------------+--------------+
| es/messages | ✔            |
+-------------+--------------+

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Using the Fast Mode

For quicker translations with potentially less precision, use the --fast flag: 
php artisan translate --name=messages --language=es --fast
This uses a faster LLM model, which is useful for:
  • Large translation files
  • Development/testing environments
  • Non-customer-facing content
The --fast flag trades some translation quality for speed. For production use, we recommend running without this flag to ensure the highest quality translations.

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Next Steps

Partial Updates

Learn how to update only missing translation keys

Multi-Language

Translate to multiple languages at once

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