---
title: "Automatic i18n. Gem i18n-tasks. Phrase. Weglot."
author: "Yaroslav Shmarov"
date: "2024-06-08"
canonical_url: "https://blog.superails.com/i18n-translation-tools"
markdown_url: "https://blog.superails.com/i18n-translation-tools.md"
description: "Here's my experience with some premium translation tools, or why gem i18n-tasks is the best."
tags: ["i18n","translations","locales","phrase","weglot"]
license: "GNU AGPL v3. Credit Yaroslav Shmarov and link the canonical URL."
video_url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovH0ROXC1cI"
---
# Automatic i18n. Gem i18n-tasks. Phrase. Weglot.
Here's my experience with some premium translation tools, or why gem i18n-tasks is the best.
### [Weglot](https://www.weglot.com/)
At 🇦🇹 one previous company we used Weglot to translate the app directly in the browser.
**Weglot does not really support Turbo Drive**. We had big troubles making it work.
A basic installation looks more-less like this:
```ruby
# app/views/layouts/application.html.erb
<%= javascript_tag nonce: true, "data-turbo-track": "reload" do -%>
Weglot.initialize({api_key: "mySecretKey", wait_transition: true});
<% end -%>
```
Using Weglot was an expensive mistake.
### [Phrase](https://phrase.com/)
At 🇫🇷 another company we used Phrase.
To manage translations in our app, we used a Phrase CLI tool.
The phrase config file looked more-less like this:
```yml
# /.phrase.yml
phrase:
access_token: foo
project_id: bar
pull:
targets:
- file: ./config/locales/.yml
params:
file_format: yml
- file: ./public/locales/.json
params:
file_format: i18next
fallback_locale_id: bazz
include_empty_translations: true
tags: frontend
```
The workflow looked like this:
1. Developer adds translation in app like `<%= I18n.t('posts.index.title) %>`
2. Developer goes to Phrase Strings app, adds to `en` locale `key=posts.index.title`, value `All posts`
3. Translate (automatically $) or manually with ChatGPT to other locales inside the Phrase tool.
4. run `phrase pull` to replace locales in the app with the updated locales from Phrase.
This process had a lot of friction, but the last drop was when they spiked up the price to EUR 750/month!
In complete desparation, I [asked](https://twitter.com/yarotheslav/status/1798289447584518331) on Twitter, and I was recommended the [gem i18n-tasks](https://github.com/glebm/i18n-tasks).
### Finally, the perfect [gem i18n-tasks](https://github.com/glebm/i18n-tasks)
The new workflow looks like this:
1. Developer adds translation in app like `<%= I18n.t('posts.index.title) %>`
2. Developer goes to Phrase Strings app, adds to `en.yml` locale `posts.index.title`, value `All posts`
3. To translate to all available locales, run `i18n-tasks translate-missing --backend=openai`.
Here I just added a translation key and run the command. It was auto-translated in all the other YML files:
The task does not override existing translations, so you can override a translation manually if required 🤠.
Generate OpenAI API keys [here](https://platform.openai.com/settings/profile?tab=api-keys).
To make the API work, keys should be kept in `/.env`. To ensure they work in your environment, run:
```shell
# .env
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-XXXX
export OPENAI_MODEL=gpt-4o
```
To check translation yml files for errors, run all commands from: `/test/i18n_test.rb`.
Be sure to have your application i18n defaults set:
```ruby
# config/application.rb
config.i18n.default_locale = :en
config.i18n.available_locales = %i[en fr nl es de it pl pt ro ua]
```
Gem i18n-tasks is great and I award it my personal gem of the month award! 🥇
P.S. I also tried [gem instant18n](https://github.com/obie/instant18n), but the approach is "Too AI-dependent, too non-canon". You can learn more about Rails i18n conventions [here](https://guides.rubyonrails.org/i18n.html).