decoding URL encoded strings

Hi,
I have a couple pages of URL encoded strings that I need to unencode (they were originally in Arabic). So the first step is to unencode the strings and then to translate them to English. They are actually lists of words so the translation from Arabic to English shouldn't be too complicated. Any suggestions as to how I might best proceed?

What is the programming language you are using? There is urldecode() in PHP, decodeURIComponent() in Javascript, and other similar functions in other languages. Do make sure the bytes are correct after you get decoded.