Way to asynchronously load Google Translate widget for your website?

Question

Is there a way to asynchronously load Google Translate widget for your website?

I tried putting this on the bottom of my page, but the #google_translate_element container was still empty.

<!-- Asynchronous Google Translate -->
<script type="text/javascript">
function googleTranslateElementInit() {
  new google.translate.TranslateElement({pageLanguage: 'en', includedLanguages: 'ar,bg,bn,de,el,eo,es,en,fr,hi,id,it,iw,ja,ko,pl,pt,ru,th,tr,vi,zh-CN', layout: google.translate.TranslateElement.InlineLayout.SIMPLE, gaTrack: true, gaId: 'UA-1234-1'}, 'google_translate_element');
}

(function() {
  var googleTranslateScript = document.createElement('script');
  googleTranslateScript.type = 'text/javascript';
  googleTranslateScript.async = true;
  googleTranslateScript.src = '//translate.google.com/translate_a/element.js?cb=googleTranslateElementInit';
  ( document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0] ).appendChild( googleTranslateScript );
})();
</script>

Answer 1

It seems that you have several problems in your code. But your basic idea is sound.

Assuming that <div id="google_translate_element"></div> is defined before the the script tag, the following should work:

<!-- Asynchronous Google Translate -->
<script type="text/javascript">
  function googleTranslateElementInit() {
    new google.translate.TranslateElement({pageLanguage: 'en',
      includedLanguages: 'ar,bg,bn,de,el,eo,es,en,fr,hi,id,it,iw,ja,ko,pl,pt,ru,th,tr,vi,zh-CN',
      layout: google.translate.TranslateElement.InlineLayout.SIMPLE,
      gaTrack: true, gaId: 'UA-37652767-1'}, 'google_translate_element');
  }

  var googleTranslateScript = document.createElement('script');
  googleTranslateScript.type = 'text/javascript';
  googleTranslateScript.async = true;
  googleTranslateScript.src = 'http://translate.google.com/translate_a/element.js?cb=googleTranslateElementInit';
  ( document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0] ).appendChild(googleTranslateScript);
</script>

At least it worked for me when I placed it all in a HTML file and loaded into chrome.

Of course it would be possible to place the vardeclaration and following lines in a $(document).ready function (or in some other manner if you do not use jQuery). Then the order between div and script would no longer be of consequence.