Translation services

VN Translator supports multiple translation backends. Your best choice depends on your language pair, budget, and how strict your engine formatting is.

DeepSeek (recommended for VN workflows)

Best for: structure preservation, VN dialogue, cost-effective quality
Needs: API key

Why many VN users pick it:

• tends to respect placeholders/tags better
• good quality for many language pairs
• stable API experience

Get a key: API keys

OpenAI (highest quality, typically higher cost)

Best for: high quality nuance, natural dialogue
Needs: API key + billing enabled

Tips:

• use smaller batch sizes to reduce retries
• always QA placeholders after translation

Get a key: API keys

DeepL (excellent for many languages)

Best for: EU languages, clean grammar
Needs: API key (Free or Pro)

Be careful with:

• tags/control codes (verify they are unchanged)
• JSON escaping when translating RPG Maker files

Get a key: API keys

Lingva / Google (free options)

Best for: quick drafts, testing, non-critical content
Needs: no key

Tradeoffs:

• may be rate-limited or unstable
• higher chance of breaking formatting
• QA is mandatory

Cost control & stability tips

• Start with batch size 10–30
• Translate only what you need (avoid re-translating already good files)
• Use Translation Memory when available (Pro Ren’Py Translator)
• If you hit rate limits:
  • reduce batch size
  • wait and retry
  • avoid parallel requests in multiple tabs

Recommended defaults

If you want “safe and boring”:

• DeepSeek
• small batch size (20)
• QA in Preview & Editor before exporting