Getting current device language in iOS

Question

I d like to show the current language that the device UI is using  What code would I use    I want this as an NSString in fully spelled out format   Not   en US    EDIT  For those driving on by  there are a ton of useful comments here  as the answer has evolved with new iOS releases

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- NSString   returnPreferredLanguage     as written text  NSUserDefaults   defaults    NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults   NSArray  preferredLanguages    defaults objectForKey   AppleLanguages    NSString  preferredLanguageCode    preferredLanguages objectAtIndex 0     preferred device language code NSLocale  enLocale     NSLocale alloc  initWithLocaleIdentifier   en      language name will be in English  or whatever  NSString  languageName    enLocale displayNameForKey NSLocaleIdentifier value preferredLanguageCode     name of language  eg   French  return languageName

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SWIFT-4     To get device default selected language  It will print like short name of zone  For english  en or spain  es   let language   Bundle main preferredLocalizations first  as NSString print  quot device language quot  language

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The selected answer returns the current device language  but not the actual language used in the app  If you don t provide a localization in your app for the user s preferred language  the first localization available  ordered by the user s preferred order  is used   To discover the current language selected within your localizations use    NSBundle mainBundle  preferredLocalizations     Example   NSString  language      NSBundle mainBundle  preferredLocalizations  objectAtIndex 0     Swift   let language   NSBundle mainBundle   preferredLocalizations first as NSString

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In Swift  there is a way simpler answer to get the current app language   Locale identifier  Bundle main preferredLocalizations 0   languageCode    It could be switched over like this for example   let supportUrl  URL         switch Locale identifier  Bundle main preferredLocalizations 0   languageCode       case  de           return Constants supportUrlGerman      default          return Constants supportUrlEnglish           I hope this helps

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Obviously  the solutions relying  for example  on     NSLocale preferredLanguages  objectAtIndex 0    usually work fine and return the current device language   But it could be misleading in some cases    If the app in which you want to get this value has already changed the language  for example with this kind of code    NSString  lg     en      or anything like   en     fr   etc    NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults       setObject  NSArray arrayWithObjects lg  nil        forKey   AppleLanguages     In this case   NSLocale preferredLanguages  actually returns the preferred language set  and used  in this particular app  not the current device language    And    in this case the only way to properly get the actual current device language  and not that previously set in the app   is to firstly clear the key   appleLanguages  in NSUserDefaults  like this      NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults removeObjectForKey   AppleLanguages      Then   NSLocale preferredLanguages  now returns the correct value    Hope this help

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iOS13  Swift 5   WWDC2019 https   developer apple com videos play wwdc2019 403   Users can select the preferred language of an app independently from the OS language   You can use these          Returns a list of the user s preferred languages         Maybe more than  or none of  your app supports      Locale preferredLanguages         a subset of this bundle s localizations  re-ordered into the preferred order        for this process s current execution environment  the main bundle s preferred localizations        indicate the language  of text  the user is most likely seeing in the UI     Bundle main preferredLocalizations           The current running app language     Bundle main preferredLocalizations first         list of language names this bundle appears to be localized to     Bundle main localizations

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If you want to get only language here is my suggested answer   NSString  langplusreg     NSLocale preferredLanguages  objectAtIndex 0   NSString   langonly     langplusreg componentsSeparatedByString   -    objectAtIndex 0     In my case i just wanted only Locale language not locale region    Output  If your Locale language is Japanese and locale region is Japan then   langplusreg   ja-JP  langonly   ja

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Simple Swift 3 function   discardableResult func getLanguageISO   - gt  String       let locale   Locale current     guard let languageCode   locale languageCode            let regionCode   locale regionCode else           return  quot de DE quot            return languageCode    quot   quot    regionCode

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For Swift 3   NSLocale preferredLanguages 0  as String

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As of iOS 9  if you just want the language code without country code  you ll want this sort of helper function - since the language will contain the country code      gets the language code without country code in uppercase format  i e  EN or DE NSString  GetLanguageCode         static dispatch once t onceToken      static NSString  lang      dispatch once  amp onceToken                  lang      NSLocale preferredLanguages  objectAtIndex 0  uppercaseString           NSRegularExpression  regex    NSRegularExpression regularExpressionWithPattern     A-Za-z    options 0 error nil           NSTextCheckingResult  match    regex firstMatchInString lang options 0 range NSMakeRange 0  lang length            if  match range location    NSNotFound                        lang    lang substringToIndex match range length                         return lang

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Translating language codes such as en US into English  United States  is a built in feature of NSLocale and NSLocale does not care where you get the language codes from  So there really is no reason to implement your own translation as the accepted answer suggests      Example code - try changing the language codes and see what happens NSLocale  locale     NSLocale alloc  initWithLocaleIdentifier   en    NSString  l1    locale displayNameForKey NSLocaleIdentifier value   en    NSString  l2    locale displayNameForKey NSLocaleIdentifier value   de    NSString  l3    locale displayNameForKey NSLocaleIdentifier value   sv    NSLog                l1  l2  l3     Prints  English  German  Swedish

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I tried to found out the right solution for myself  When I use Locale preferredLanguages first was returned the preferred language from your app settings    If you want get to know language from user device settings  you should the use string below   Swift 3  let currentDeviceLanguage   Locale current languageCode    Will return the optional String   To unwrap and use look at the line below   if let currentDeviceLanguage   Locale current languageCode       print  currentLanguage   currentDeviceLanguage          For example     if currentDeviceLanguage     he            UIView appearance   semanticContentAttribute    forceRightToLeft       else           UIView appearance   semanticContentAttribute    forceLeftToRight

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Even there s a better way to get current device language  Let s try it by below code - NSLog   quot Current Language -    quot     NSLocale preferredLanguages  firstObject     Suggested by Abizern on here

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According to Apple documentation   NSUserDefaults  defs    NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults   NSArray  languages    defs objectForKey   AppleLanguages    NSString  preferredLang    languages objectAtIndex 0

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The solutions provided will actually return the current region of the device - not the currently selected language  These are often one and the same  However  if I am in North America and I set my language to Japanese  my region will still be English  United States   In order to retrieve the currently selected language  you can do   NSString   language     NSLocale preferredLanguages  firstObject     This will return a two letter code for the currently selected language   en  for English   es  for Spanish   de  for German  etc  For more examples  please see this Wikipedia entry  in particular  the 639-1 column    List of ISO 639-1 codes  Then it s a simple matter of converting the two letter codes to the string you would like to display  So if it s  en   display  English    Hope this helps someone that s looking to differentiate between region and currently selected language   EDIT  Worth to quote the header information from NSLocale h      NSArray   preferredLanguages NS AVAILABLE 10 5  2 0      note that this list does not indicate what language the app is actually running in  the  NSBundle mainBundle  object determines that at launch and knows that information   People interested in app language take a look at  mindvision s answer

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For getting user device current language use the following it code it worked for me   NSString   myString     NSLocale preferredlanguage objectAtIndex 0

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For MonoTouch C  developers use   NSLocale PreferredLanguages FirstOrDefault       en    Note  I know this was an iOS question  but as I am a MonoTouch developer  the answer on this page led me in the right direction and I thought I d share the results

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The accepted  and the other answers all don t take into account that the preferred language can be another language than the device language   The device language is the language in which operating system elements and Apple apps are presented   The preferred language is the language the user would like to have apps localized in  Apple only provides a limited set of translations  If the preferred language is one language Apple translated their apps to  it will also be the device language  However if the user prefers a language for which Apple doesn t provide translations the device and preferred languages won t match  The device language will not be on first position in the preferred languages list   The following function will go through the preferred languages list and check if there is a translation in the Apple frameworks  The first language to have a translation is the device language  The function will return its language code   func deviceLanguage   - gt  String        let systemBundle  NSBundle   NSBundle forClass  UIView self      let englishLocale  NSLocale   NSLocale localeIdentifier   en        let preferredLanguages   String    NSLocale preferredLanguages        for language  String in preferredLanguages           let languageComponents   String   String    NSLocale componentsFromLocaleIdentifier language           guard let languageCode  String   languageComponents NSLocaleLanguageCode  else               continue                       ex  es MX lproj  zh CN lproj         if let countryCode  String   languageComponents NSLocaleCountryCode                if systemBundle pathForResource    languageCode    countryCode    ofType   lproj      nil                      returns language and country code because it appears that the actual language is coded within the country code aswell                    for example  zh CN probably mandarin  zh HK probably cantonese                 return language                                     ex  English lproj  German lproj         if let languageName  String   englishLocale displayNameForKey NSLocaleIdentifier  value  languageCode                if systemBundle pathForResource languageName  ofType   lproj      nil                   return languageCode                                     ex  pt lproj  hu lproj         if systemBundle pathForResource languageCode  ofType   lproj      nil               return languageCode                      return nil     This works if the preferred language list is    Afrikaans  iOS is not translated into Afrikaans  Spanish  Device Language    The preferred language list can be edited in  Settings app -  General -  Language  amp  Region -  Preferred Language Order    You can than use the device language code and translate it into the language name  The following lines will print the device language in the device language  For example  Espa  ol  if the device is set to spanish   if let deviceLanguageCode  String   deviceLanguage         let printOutputLanguageCode  String   deviceLanguageCode     let printOutputLocale  NSLocale   NSLocale localeIdentifier  printOutputLanguageCode       if let deviceLanguageName  String   printOutputLocale displayNameForKey NSLocaleIdentifier  value  deviceLanguageCode               keep in mind that for some localizations this will print a language and a country            see deviceLanguage   implementation above         print deviceLanguageName

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amir response in Swift      Get language prefered by user let langageRegion   NSLocale preferredLanguages   first  let languageDic   NSLocale componentsFromLocaleIdentifier langageRegion  let language   languageDic NSLocaleLanguageCode

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Two letters format  Apple uses the ISO standard ISO-3166   NSString  localeCountryCode     NSLocale autoupdatingCurrentLocale  objectForKey NSLocaleCountryCode

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For Swift 3 0 below code can be used to answer your question    let language   Bundle main preferredLocalizations first  as NSString

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This will probably give you what you want   NSLocale  locale    NSLocale currentLocale    NSString  language    locale displayNameForKey NSLocaleIdentifier                                           value  locale localeIdentifier      It will show the name of the language  in the language itself  For example   Fran  ais  France  English  United States

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If you re looking for preferred language code   quot en quot    quot de quot    quot es quot        and localized preferred language name  for current locale   here s a simple extension in Swift  extension Locale       static var preferredLanguageIdentifier  String           let id   Locale preferredLanguages first          let comps   Locale components fromIdentifier  id          return comps values first             static var preferredLanguageLocalizedString  String           let id   Locale preferredLanguages first          return Locale current localizedString forLanguageCode  id

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Swift 3  let locale   Locale current let code    locale as NSLocale  object forKey  NSLocale Key countryCode  as  String  print code

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Solution for iOS 9   NSString  language     NSLocale preferredLanguages  objectAtIndex 0     language    en-US   NSDictionary  languageDic    NSLocale componentsFromLocaleIdentifier language     languageDic will have the needed components  NSString  countryCode    languageDic objectForKey   kCFLocaleCountryCodeKey      countryCode    US   NSString  languageCode    languageDic objectForKey   kCFLocaleLanguageCodeKey      languageCode    en

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Updated answer for Swift 4  let language   Bundle main preferredLocalizations first

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Swift  To get current language of device  NSLocale preferredLanguages   0  as String   To get application language  NSBundle mainBundle   preferredLocalizations 0  as NSString   Note   It fetches the language that you have given in CFBundleDevelopmentRegion of info plist  if CFBundleAllowMixedLocalizations is true in info plist then first item of CFBundleLocalizations in info plist is returned

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i use this      NSArray  arr    NSLocale preferredLanguages   for  NSString  lan in arr        NSLog              lan   NSLocale canonicalLanguageIdentifierFromString lan      NSLocale alloc  initWithLocaleIdentifier lan  displayNameForKey NSLocaleIdentifier value lan        ignore memory leak    and result is  2013-03-02 20 01 57 457 xx 12334 907  zh-Hans  zh-Hans          2013-03-02 20 01 57 460 xx 12334 907  en  en English 2013-03-02 20 01 57 462 xx 12334 907  ja  ja     2013-03-02 20 01 57 465 xx 12334 907  fr  fr fran  ais 2013-03-02 20 01 57 468 xx 12334 907  de  de Deutsch 2013-03-02 20 01 57 472 xx 12334 907  nl  nl Nederlands 2013-03-02 20 01 57 477 xx 12334 907  it  it italiano 2013-03-02 20 01 57 481 xx 12334 907  es  es espa  ol

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I actually misread the original question  thought it asked for the  quot app UI quot  language  that s what I had googled for   not the  quot device UI quot   in which case the best answers would be the ones using preferredLocalizations  but those answers still give you a code  there is one more step to get a nice string to display  So  while the  quot device UI quot  language is already answered  if you want to display a nice string for which of the UI languages you support is currently in use  obviously the simplest solution is  NSLocalizedString   quot currentLanguage quot     quot  quot    Where in every one of your UI localizations you have specified it exactly the way you want it shown  E g  in the en version of your  strings file you d have   quot currentLanguage quot   quot English quot    in your fr version of the  strings file you d have   quot currentLanguage quot   quot Francais quot    etc  No messing with codes etc  you make your own strings to nicely match your UI

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In Swift 4 2 and Xcode 10 1  let language   NSLocale preferredLanguages 0  print language   en

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In Swift   let languageCode   NSLocale currentLocale   objectForKey NSLocaleLanguageCode  as  String

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You can use the displayNameForKey value  method of NSLocale      get a French locale instance NSLocale  frLocale      NSLocale alloc  initWithLocaleIdentifier   fr FR   autorelease       use it to get translated display names of fr FR and en US NSLog         frLocale displayNameForKey NSLocaleIdentifier value   fr FR     NSLog         frLocale displayNameForKey NSLocaleIdentifier value   en US       This will print out   fran  ais  France  anglais    tats-Unis    If you specify the same locale identifier for the initWithLocaleIdentifier  and also the displayNameForKey value  method  then it will give you the native name of the language  I ve discovered that if you remove the country code and use just fr and en  that it will also omit the country from the display name  on Mac OS X at least  not sure about iOS

[ios] Getting current device language in iOS?

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