Pig Latin Translator

The Pig Latin Translator converts English into the playground word game where "hello world" becomes "ellohay orldway". Paste a sentence or a whole paragraph and press Translate; punctuation, numbers and the capital letter at the start of each word stay in place.

The two rules it applies

1. Word starts with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u): add "way" to the end. "apple" becomes "appleway" and "Eat" becomes "Eatway".
2. Word starts with consonants: move every consonant before the first vowel to the end, then add "ay". "string" becomes "ingstray", "chair" becomes "airchay" and "school" becomes "oolschay".

If the original word began with a capital, the translated word does too: "Hello, World!" becomes "Ellohay, Orldway!".

A full sentence

"Pig Latin is a secret language" translates to:

Igpay Atinlay isway away ecretsay anguagelay

Reading it aloud is the real test. Say each word by starting from the moved-over middle, "ig-pay, at-in-lay", and it becomes easier to decode by ear than it looks written down.

Words that come out differently from what you might expect

Pig Latin has no official rulebook, and this translator follows its two rules strictly. That produces a few results worth knowing about:

• "qu" is not kept together. "quick" becomes "uickqay", whereas many people say "ickquay".
• Y always counts as a consonant. "yellow" correctly becomes "ellowyay", but "my" becomes "myay" and "rhythm", which has no a, e, i, o or u, becomes "rhythmay".
• All-caps words lose their capitals after the first letter: "NASA" becomes "Asanay".
• Apostrophes split words. "don't" is treated as "don" and "t", giving "onday'tay".
• Accented letters also split words, so "café" becomes "afcayé".
• Numbers stay as they are: "I am 25 years old" becomes "Iway amway 25 earsyay oldway".

Some groups add "yay" or just "ay" to vowel words instead of "way". If your friends use a different version, change those endings with Find and Replace after translating.

Fun and classroom uses

• Secret messages between friends or siblings, the game's traditional use.
• Phonics practice. Working out where the first vowel sound is, and which consonant cluster moves, makes children listen to the structure of words.
• Coding exercises. Writing a Pig Latin function is a popular beginner programming task; comparing your output with this tool's shows how your rules for "qu", "y" and capitals differ.
• Party games and quizzes, where teams decode a famous line or movie title.

Other word games on the site

For puzzles that hide words in other ways, try the text reverser or encode letters with the Caesar cipher, which shifts each letter along the alphabet by a fixed number of places.