How to get the current language in Django?

Question

How can I get the current language in Django?

Inferno

Please be specific. 'The language of my web' - do you mean the web request, the web server, or what? – Hubey

Answer 1

Functions of particular interest are django.utils.translation.get_language() which returns the language used in the current thread. See documentation.

Spiros

Caveat: Returns None if translations are temporarily deactivated (by deactivate_all() or when None is passed to override()). Before Django 1.8, get_language() always returned LANGUAGE_CODE when translations were deactivated. – Basalt

Answer 2

Or you can also get this in your views

request.LANGUAGE_CODE

Septa

I voted this up (from -1 for some reason). Note the following (from docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/i18n/deployment/… "with static (middleware-less) translation, the language is in settings.LANGUAGE_CODE, while with dynamic (middleware) translation, it's in request.LANGUAGE_CODE." – Stenson

That link is dead, and I see no reason for not using the documented accepted solution above: django.utils.translation.get_language() – Sourpuss

trying to get the language in e.g. models would not be possible if there is no request yet. I think the django.utils.translation.get_language() is always a better solution. – Earthaearthborn

What about to get the current language in a template? – Gilges

@Gilges this might be useful for you docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/i18n/translation/… – Delectable

Thanks been googlin this for 20 minutes. For template use {{ request.LANGUAGE_CODE }} – Station

Answer 3

Be careful of the method you use to get the language. Depending on which method, Django will use different ways and informations to determine the right language to use.

When using the django.utils.translation.get_language() function, it's linked to the thread language. Before Django 1.8, it always returned settings.LANGUAGE_CODE when translations were disabled. If you want to manually override the thread language, you can use the override() or activate() functions, which is not very explicitly named, but well, still useful:

from django.utils import translation

with translation.override('fr'):
    print(_("Hello")) # <= will be translated inside the with block

translation.activate('fr') # <= will change the language for the whole thread.
# You then have to manually "restore" the language with another activate()
translation.activate('en') # <= change languages manually

If you want django to check the path and/or request (language cookie, ...), which is a lot more common e.g. www.example.com/en/<somepath> vs www.example.com/fr/<somepath>, use django.utils.translation.get_language_from_request(request, check_path=False). Also, it will always return a valid language set in settings.LANGUAGES

I found it not very easy to find these differences through Google about this subject so here it is for further reference.

Fluorite

Note that it is django.utils.translation, not translations. There is a misspelling in the link provided. In the snippet it is correct. – Lanti

+1 for the difference between django.utils.translation.get_language() and django.utils.translation.get_language_from_request(request, check_path). If in view, you should use the latter with check_path = True to get the language your template will get rendered in. – Maffa

Answer 4

Just to add that if you do use django.utils.translation.get_language() then you should bear in mind that if that section of code will be called asynchronously (e.g. as a celery task) then this approach won't work due to it running in a different thread.

Haller

The obvious approach here would be to pass language as task parameter, and then set language with translation.activate(language) – Eveliaevelin

Answer 5

You can use these template tags in Django's templating language:

{% load i18n %}

{% get_current_language as LANGUAGE_CODE %}

Current language code: {{ LANGUAGE_CODE }}<br>

{% get_current_language_bidi as LANGUAGE_BIDI %}

{% if LANGUAGE_BIDI %}RTL <br>{% endif %}

{% get_language_info for LANGUAGE_CODE as lang %}

Language code: {{ lang.code }}<br>
Name of language: {{ lang.name_local }}<br>
Name in English: {{ lang.name }}<br>
Bi-directional: {{ lang.bidi }}
Name in the active language: {{ lang.name_translated }}

Beset

Answer 6

You can get the current language with LANGUAGE_CODE and get_language() in Django Views as shown below:

# "views.py"

from django.shortcuts import render
from django.utils.translation import get_language

def test(request):
    print(request.LANGUAGE_CODE) # en
    print(get_language()) # en
    return render(request, 'index.html')

And, you can get the current language with LANGUAGE_CODE and get_current_language in Django Templates as shown below. *get_current_language needs to load i18n:

{% "index.html" %}

{% load i18n %}

{{ request.LANGUAGE_CODE }} {% "en" %}

{% get_current_language as current_language %}
{{ current_language }} {% "en" %}

Peeples

Answer 7

You can read the system's locale for language information.

Chevaldefrise

You're moderated to -3, but I think the question is vague - "the current language of my web". Not your fault for guessing this means OS. – Hubey