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LangDex provides translations between any of the 5,700+ supported languages through its meaning-centric architecture. Instead of storing direct word-to-word translations, LangDex connects words through cross-lingual meanings.

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How Translation Works

Source Word → Sense → Meaning → Sense → Target Word
  1. Look up the source word and identify its sense
  2. Find the meaning linked to that sense
  3. Query senses in the target language linked to the same meaning
  4. Return the best matching word(s) with confidence scores
This approach enables:
  • Translation between any language pair (no direct pairs needed)
  • Sense-level disambiguation
  • Automatic coverage expansion as new languages are added

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Translation Object

{
  "source": {
    "lexeme_id": 123,
    "lemma": "water",
    "language": "eng",
    "sense_id": 456,
    "gloss": "liquid H2O"
  },
  "meaning_id": 98765,
  "translations": [
    {
      "lexeme_id": 789,
      "lemma": "Wasser",
      "language": "deu",
      "sense_id": 1011,
      "gloss": "Wasser, Flüssigkeit",
      "confidence": 0.98,
      "sources": ["panlex", "kaikki"]
    },
    {
      "lexeme_id": 1213,
      "lemma": "Gewässer",
      "language": "deu",
      "sense_id": 1415,
      "gloss": "body of water",
      "confidence": 0.72,
      "sources": ["panlex"]
    }
  ]
}

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Confidence Scores

Translation confidence (0.0 - 1.0) is calculated based on:
FactorWeightDescription
Source agreement40%Multiple sources confirming the translation
Sense alignment30%How precisely senses match
Frequency data15%Common translations ranked higher
POS match15%Same part of speech preferred

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Translation Pairs

For high-traffic language pairs, LangDex caches direct translation pairs: 
{
  "id": 999,
  "source_sense_id": 456,
  "target_sense_id": 1011,
  "source_language": "eng",
  "target_language": "deu",
  "confidence": 0.98,
  "source": "panlex",
  "bidirectional": true
}

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API Endpoints

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Translate a word

curl "https://api.langdex.co/v1/translations/translate" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "text": "water",
    "source_lang": "eng",
    "target_lang": "deu",
    "limit": 5
  }'
Response: 
{
  "source": {
    "text": "water",
    "language": "eng",
    "detected_senses": [
      {"sense_id": 456, "gloss": "liquid H2O", "confidence": 0.95},
      {"sense_id": 457, "gloss": "body of water", "confidence": 0.05}
    ]
  },
  "translations": [
    {"lemma": "Wasser", "confidence": 0.98},
    {"lemma": "Gewässer", "confidence": 0.72}
  ]
}

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Translate via meaning ID

curl "https://api.langdex.co/v1/translations?meaning_id=98765&target_lang=fra,spa,jpn" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

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Get translation pairs

curl "https://api.langdex.co/v1/translations/pairs?source_lang=eng&target_lang=deu&limit=100" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

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Multi-hop Translation

For rare language pairs with no direct meaning links, LangDex can perform multi-hop translation through intermediate languages: 
Basque → Spanish → English → Japanese
This is indicated in the response: 
{
  "translations": [...],
  "path": ["eus", "spa", "eng", "jpn"],
  "hops": 3,
  "confidence_penalty": 0.15
}

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Sense Disambiguation

When a word has multiple senses, you can specify which sense to translate: 
curl "https://api.langdex.co/v1/translations/translate" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "text": "bank",
    "source_lang": "eng",
    "target_lang": "fra",
    "sense_hint": "financial institution"
  }'
Or provide context for automatic disambiguation: 
curl "https://api.langdex.co/v1/translations/translate" \
  -d '{
    "text": "bank",
    "source_lang": "eng",
    "target_lang": "fra",
    "context": "I need to go to the bank to deposit money"
  }'

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Batch Translation

Translate multiple words efficiently: 
curl "https://api.langdex.co/v1/translations/batch" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "items": [
      {"text": "water", "source_lang": "eng"},
      {"text": "fire", "source_lang": "eng"},
      {"text": "earth", "source_lang": "eng"}
    ],
    "target_lang": "jpn"
  }'

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Coverage Statistics

MetricValue
Languages5,700+
Meaning connections2M+
Direct translation pairs500M+
High-confidence pairs (>0.9)150M+

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Use Cases

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Language Learning Apps

Provide translations for vocabulary with sense-level precision: 
curl "https://api.langdex.co/v1/translations?lexeme_id=56789&target_lang=eng&include=examples"

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Dictionary Integration

Show translations alongside definitions: 
curl "https://api.langdex.co/v1/lexemes/56789?include=translations:eng,fra,deu"

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Research Tools

Export translation pairs for linguistic analysis: 
curl "https://api.langdex.co/v1/translations/pairs/export?source_lang=eng&target_lang=deu&format=tsv"