Localized human language software support

User interface text for dialog boxes, menus, and the like is "localized" with respect to human languages is achieved at run time by transmitting a translation request containing a text string to be translated, an identification of the source language, and an identification of the target language to a Web server providing text string translation services. The response from the Web server contains the translated text string, which is employed by the user application within the user interface. Text strings for all of the user interfaces of a particular user application may be translated in this fashion as a group at the time an unsupported human language is first requested, or text strings may simply be translated on-the-fly during operation of the underlying user application on an as-needed basis. the translated text strings may be preserved locally for future use, until a translation of the user interface text to the requested human language is provided by the user application developer. In a preferred embodiment, an extension of the Java ResourceBundles class is utilized to support run-time human language translation of user interface text. The new class, JILResourceBundle, obtains the translation of the user interface text strings when an unsupported language is requested, and may be inserted into a Java Application Resource file placed within the user's classpath to avoid the necessity of rewriting the underlying user application in order to utilize the new class.