Getting current device language in iOS?

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.

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)

You can use the `displayNameForKey:value:` method of [`NSLocale`](

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):

// 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).

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 中文（简体中文）
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 日本語
2013-03-02 20:01:57.465 xx[12334:907] fr: fr français
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 español

According to Apple [documentation][1]


NSUserDefaults* defs = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
NSArray* languages = [defs objectForKey:@"AppleLanguages"];
NSString* preferredLang = [languages objectAtIndex:0];


[1]:

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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];

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**

-(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;

}

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.

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