cctranslate

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A bilingual overlay for Claude Code: every reply gets a translated line (Chinese / Japanese / Korean / Russian / Hindi) under each original English line, right in the conversation.

● I will refactor the auth module to use async tokens.
  ↳ 我将重构 auth 模块以使用异步令牌。
  This touches 3 files and adds a retry layer.
  ↳ 这涉及 3 个文件并添加重试层。

• Non-destructive: the translation only appears on screen — the transcript and the model's context stay pure English, so skills, docs, and code are unaffected.
• No history pollution, no main-loop tokens: translation runs through a separate cheap backend, completely outside your Claude Code session.
• One-key toggle: on by default; switch it off instantly when you want plain English.

Why

Two problems, one architecture:

1. Claude Code keeps replying in English. Skills and docs must stay English, and even with a "reply in my language" rule in CLAUDE.md, replies drift back to English. Re-asking for a translation costs a full model turn and pollutes the conversation history.

2. Working in your language has a hidden token tax — on Claude specifically. Expressing the same meaning costs ~1.5–3× more tokens than English (Claude's tokenizer compresses non-Latin scripts poorly), and Claude Code's 5-hour window and weekly caps are measured in tokens — so non-English sessions burn your plan 1.5–3× faster. Crucially, answer quality is not the problem: Claude scores >90% on multilingual benchmarks. The pain is purely cost.

Anthropic's tracking issue for language-adjusted limits (#26401) was closed not planned — there is no first-party remedy.

So the cheapest correct design is exactly what this tool does: the session stays English end-to-end (prompts, transcript, model context — zero extra main-loop tokens), and your language exists only where the human needs it: a display-only translated line under each English line, rendered by a separate cheap backend.

Full research notes with sources: MOTIVATION.md.

How it works

Built on Claude Code's native MessageDisplay hook (v2.1.152+): it fires while each assistant message renders, handing the hook each completed text chunk (delta); the displayContent the hook returns replaces the on-screen rendering only, never the stored message.

Claude streams English
        │  fires per completed chunk (stdin: turn_id/message_id/index/final/delta)
        ▼
  hook/message-display.js  ──►  src/interleave.js  ──►  src/translate.js
   (read delta, check toggle)   (prose / code / already-target)   (backends + cache)
        │
        ▼  returns displayContent = "EN line\n↳ translated line"
   Claude Code replaces the display in place (original stays in transcript/context)

Verified on CC 2.1.169: deltas are non-overlapping completed chunks (not accumulated text), a plain \n renders the two languages on separate lines, and code blocks / paths / already-translated lines are skipped automatically.

Install

npm install -g cctrans && cctrans install

# from source:
git clone https://github.com/roy-jiang-opus/cctranslate.git
cd cctranslate
node bin/cctrans.js install      # registers the hooks, links cctrans into ~/.local/bin, then runs the setup wizard

Then restart Claude Code (new session) so the hook loads. Send any message — replies become bilingual.

Requires ~/.local/bin on your PATH; otherwise use an alias: alias cctrans='node /path/to/cctranslate/bin/cctrans.js'

Usage

Fastest toggle: type !cctrans off or !cctrans on inside Claude Code's input box (! is CC's built-in bash mode — no model call, no tokens).

Translation backends

If the primary backend fails or times out, the chain falls back to google — the session is never blocked. Every translated line is cached by backend + language + content hash.

API keys live only in ~/.cc-translate/keys.json (chmod 600) — set them with cctrans setup / cctrans key, or edit the file directly. Shell environment variables are never read, so this tool's keys and your terminal's keys can't contaminate each other.

All other settings (backend, language, marker, models, Azure endpoint) live in ~/.cc-translate/state.json — change them via cctrans commands or edit the file directly.

Languages

Target languages cover CJK + Russian + Hindi (non-Latin scripts, so "this line is already in the target language" can be detected for free via Unicode ranges and skipped):

cctrans lang ja       # Japanese
cctrans lang ko       # Korean
cctrans lang ru       # Russian
cctrans lang hi       # Hindi
cctrans lang zh-Hant  # Traditional Chinese
cctrans lang zh-Hans  # Simplified Chinese (default)

Chinese uses BCP-47 script codes (zh-Hans/zh-Hant) — Traditional Chinese is a script, not a region; zh-CN / zh-TW are accepted as aliases and normalized. Switching takes effect immediately (the hook re-reads state on every call); each language has its own cache.

Input translation

cctrans input on enables a UserPromptSubmit hook: when your prompt is mostly non-English, an English translation is attached as context the model treats as the canonical instruction — you keep typing in your language, the model works in English. (Verified on CC 2.1.169: hooks cannot rewrite the prompt itself, so the original stays in history with the English alongside.) English prompts pass through untouched; any error falls back to sending your prompt as-is.

Behavior & limits (verified)

• The hook fires per chunk during streaming; each chunk is translated and replaced in place — translations appear progressively alongside the English.
• The hook has a 10-second timeout; this tool guards at 9s internally. Any error / timeout / oversized chunk (>9,000 chars) falls back safely to the original English — it never stalls the session.
• Every translated line is cached by content hash (~/.cc-translate/cache); repaints and repeated text cost nothing.
• With openai, each chunk is roughly one API call (~$0.0001) and adds about 1s of latency vs. plain English; google is faster with slightly lower quality.

Uninstall

node bin/cctrans.js uninstall    # removes the hook; restart Claude Code to take effect