As an information science enthusiast, I ceaselessly encounter problems that require me to process large amounts of text data. Recently, I discovered myself faced with the duty of translating over 40,000 lines of English sentences to my native language of Malayalam for a machine learning project. Initially, I attempted using a Python library called googletrans to perform the translations, but as a result of the dimensions of the info and the variety of requests I used to be making, the library repeatedly broke down and eventually led to a read error.

Feeling frustrated and stuck, I started to look for another solution to translate the info. That’s when a friend suggested I try using Google Sheets. I used to be sceptical at first, as I had never used Google Sheets for translation tasks before. Nonetheless, I made a decision to provide it a try, and it turned out to be a lifesaver.

On this blog post, I’ll explain the steps I took to make use of Google Sheets to translate my text data quickly and efficiently.

Preparing the Data

Step one was to organize my data for the interpretation. I had all of the English sentences in a .txt file, with each sentence on a recent line. To make use of Google Sheets, I needed to repeat and paste the sentences right into a spreadsheet. I opened a recent Google Sheet and pasted the sentences into the primary column.

Setting Up the GoogleTranslate Function

Google Sheets has a built-in function called googletranslate that will be used to translate text. To make use of this function, I needed to establish a formula within the second column of the spreadsheet. I clicked on the primary cell of the second column and typed the next formula:

=googletranslate(A1,”en”,”ml”)

On this formula, A1 refers back to the first cell in the primary column, which comprises the English sentence to be translated. “en” and “ml” represent the language codes for English and Malayalam, respectively. I then pressed Enter, and the cell immediately populated with the Malayalam translation of the English sentence.

Step 3: Translating the Data

With the formula arrange within the second column, I used to be able to translate the remaining of the info. I chosen the cell with the formula and dragged it all the way down to the last cell in the primary column. This routinely copied the formula to all of the cells within the second column, translating each English sentence to Malayalam because it went.

Saving the Translations

Once all the info had been translated, I needed to save lots of the outcomes back to a .txt file. To do that, I chosen the second column and copied all of the translated sentences. I then opened a recent text file and pasted the translations into it. Finally, I saved the text file with a recent name to differentiate it from the unique file.

Results

Because of Google Sheets, all the translation process took lower than 10 minutes, a major improvement over the 11+ hours it took using the googletrans library to translate the half of it. The translations were accurate and complete, and I used to be capable of move on to the following steps of my machine learning project with ease.

In conclusion, my experience shows that when faced with an issue, it’s all the time value exploring different solutions and approaches. While I initially thought that a Python library was the very best option, using Google Sheets proved to be a way more efficient and effective solution. I hope this post inspires others to think about alternative approaches when faced with difficult problems.