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.

Answer 1

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:

Français (France)
English (United States)

Answer 2

If you're looking for preferred language code ("en", "de", "es" ...), 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)!
}

}

Answer 3

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("device language",language)

Answer 4

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

Answer 5

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"

Answer 6

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:

français (France)
anglais (États-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).