Pig Latin Translator
Translate English to Pig Latin and Pig Latin back to English. Handles consonant clusters (street becomes eetstray), vowel-initial words, the qu pair, and Y correctly — and keeps your capitalisation and punctuation intact.
Whether you call it pig latin translator or english to pig latin, this free tool handles it instantly in your browser.
Options
Example usage
Example input
Hello, world!
Example output
Ellohay, orldway!
Batch Processing
Enter multiple inputs, one per line. Each line will be processed separately.
Why this tool?
Everything runs right in your browser — no uploads, no sign-up, no waiting. Your text never leaves your device.
Quick tips
- •Outputs update live as you type.
- •Use the sticky copy button to grab results quickly.
- •Bookmark this page for fast access.
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How it works
- Words starting with a consonant move the whole opening consonant cluster to the end and add "ay" — street becomes eetstray, not treetsay.
- Words starting with a vowel keep their order and take a suffix: apple becomes appleway (or appleyay, your choice).
- Y counts as a consonant at the start of a word (yellow becomes ellowyay) but as a vowel inside one (rhythm becomes ythmrhay). The qu pair always moves together.
- Switch Direction to "from" to decode Pig Latin back into English.
Use cases
The rules, including the ones most tools get wrong
The core rule is simple: move everything before the first vowel to the end of the word and add "ay". Pig becomes igpay. The part people get wrong is that it is the whole consonant cluster that moves, not just the first letter — street becomes eetstray, not treetsay, because "str" is a single onset. A translator that moves one letter at a time produces output that no Pig Latin speaker would recognise.
Three more edge cases separate a correct implementation from a naive one. "Qu" always travels as a pair, so quiet becomes ietquay rather than uietqay. "Y" behaves as a consonant at the start of a word (yellow becomes ellowyay) but as a vowel inside one (rhythm becomes ythmrhay). And words that begin with a vowel do not rearrange at all — they simply take a suffix.
Why vowel words have three different endings
There is no single authority on Pig Latin, and the one genuine dialect split is what to do with a word that already starts with a vowel. Apple can become appleway, appleyay, or appleay depending on who taught you. All three are widely attested and none is more correct than the others.
This matters more than it sounds if you are using Pig Latin in a classroom or with a group, because mixing conventions mid-game causes arguments. Pick one at the start. The translator defaults to "way" and lets you switch, so you can match whatever your group already uses rather than arguing with the tool.
Why decoding is harder than encoding
Turning English into Pig Latin is deterministic. Going back is not. The word "igpay" could split as p + ig, giving "pig", or as gp + i, giving "gpi". Both follow the rules; only one is a word. Encoding throws away the information needed to reverse it cleanly.
This translator resolves the ambiguity by preferring the longest trailing consonant cluster that is a legal English syllable onset. "Gp" cannot start an English word, so "igpay" resolves to pig; "str" can, so "eetstray" correctly returns street rather than reetst. It is a good heuristic rather than a guarantee — unusual names and loanwords can still come back wrong, so read decoded output with an eye on it.
Encoding
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FAQ
What are the rules of Pig Latin?
Move every consonant before the first vowel to the end of the word and add "ay": pig becomes igpay, street becomes eetstray. If the word already starts with a vowel, leave the letters in place and add "way" or "yay": apple becomes appleway. Capitalisation and punctuation stay where they were.
How do you say a word that starts with a vowel in Pig Latin?
There is no single standard. The three common conventions are adding "way" (appleway), "yay" (appleyay), or plain "ay" (appleay). This translator defaults to "way" and lets you switch, so you can match whichever version your group or class uses.
Can this translate Pig Latin back into English?
Yes — set Direction to "from". Note that decoding is genuinely ambiguous: "igpay" could split as p+ig or gp+i. The translator resolves this by preferring the longest opening cluster that is a real English sound, which gives "pig" and turns "eetstray" back into "street". Unusual words may still need a human eye.
Is Pig Latin a real language?
No. It is a language game — a systematic way of rearranging English words rather than a language with its own vocabulary and grammar. It has been documented in English-speaking schoolyards since at least the nineteenth century, and despite the name it has nothing to do with Latin.