# Detecting user language
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [March 3, 2016, 2:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505 "2016-03-03T14:06:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@gberaudo](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gberaudo)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2016, 2:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505/1 "2016-03-03T14:06:51Z")
Is there a way to detect what language was chosen by the user?
The default language is availabe in the **lang** attribute of the **html** tag.
Would it be possible to add a custom attribute with the chosen language?
This is necessary to translate UI customizations.
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### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2016, 3:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505/2 "2016-03-03T15:09:42Z")
This has come up before:
> [@Variable default interface language for new users](https://meta.discourse.org/t/variable-default-interface-language-for-new-users/33741):
>
> Hey guys, New Discourse user here, but super impressed and excited about what a great product it is. I am developing a forum that will be multilingual (Arabic/English/German). Most users will be extremely limited in the other languages, basically I don’t want to expect a German/English speaker to be able to read Arabic script, and vice versa. I also don’t want to rely too much on their computer skills—want to make this as easy as possible. Is there a way that I can provide a separate URL that …
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### Author:  [@simon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/simon)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505/3 "2016-03-03T15:33:39Z")
There’s a plugin for this that works well. It needs to be updated to work with the new plugin API. I can do that later today.
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### Author:  [@gberaudo](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gberaudo)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505/4 "2016-03-03T16:26:39Z")
Simon, I do not see where your plugin adds an attribute to the page with
the chosen language code.
Am I missing something? Maybe it is easy to add?
Anyway, thank you for proposing to update it. However, I don’t know yet if
I will be able to use it.
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### Author:  [@simon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/simon)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2016, 4:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505/5 "2016-03-03T16:36:18Z")
It sets the locale. The UI is then automatically translated by Discourse.
What is the attribute that you would like to be adding?
edit - I see 🙂 - yes that would be possible.
> [@gberaudo](#):
>
> The default language is availabe in the lang attribute of the html tag.Would it be possible to add a custom attribute with the chosen language?
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### Author:  [@gberaudo](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gberaudo)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505/6 "2016-03-03T16:43:56Z")
It seems possible to add a custom menu through admin-\>Customize-\>css\_html section.
This menu must be localized. If I can find out the chosen language from the page, I can chose the correct translation for the menu.
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### Author:  [@simon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/simon)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505/7 "2016-03-03T16:54:59Z")
The chosen locale is always available on the client as `I18n.locale`. Maybe you can find it that way in your code.
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### Author:  [@gberaudo](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gberaudo)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505/8 "2016-03-03T17:12:08Z")
Thank you, that will help.
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### Author:  [@gberaudo](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gberaudo)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2016, 11:11am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505/9 "2016-03-04T11:11:37Z")
> [@simon](#):
>
> There’s a plugin for this that works well. It needs to be updated to work with the new plugin API. I can do that later today.
Hi @simon, indeed your plugin is great. I gave it a try on my dev instance (v1.5.0.beta8 +164) and it was fantastic!
I found out about the [new plugin API](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-new-versioned-api-for-client-side-plugins/40051).
Indeed, it woud be great to be able to use the plugin with newer Discourse versions. Your help/guidance will be appreciated.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2018, 3:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505/10 "2018-12-25T15:41:40Z")
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2021, 2:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/detecting-user-language/40505/11 "2021-11-21T02:52:21Z")