How to get translation in Umbraco by dictionary key

This article will demonstrate how to get translation in Umbraco Cms using LocalizationService for a given dictionary key.

Defining translations in the Backoffice

At this stage, we need some data to work.

• Login to Umbraco Backoffice panel
• Go to the Translation section
• Find the Dictionary section (left panel).
• Create a dictionary item called "Forms.ContactForm.ThankYouMessage"
• Fill in some text for all Languages (English, Polish, Russian, German) 

Umbraco Dictionary Tree

Umbraco Dictionary item with 4 languages

Once the dictionary item is ready, we can move on.

How to get translation in Umbraco CMS for the given key?

You should take the following steps:

• Find the desired language identifier (integer) - you can view a list of all languages under /umbraco#/settings/languages/overview
• Get LocalizationService instance
• Execute LocalizationService.GetDictionaryItemByKey(key) method passing the string key ("Forms.ContactForm.ThankYouMessage")
• Find the translation for the given LanguageId
• Once, the IDictionaryTranslation object was found - you can retrieve the value with ".Value" property 

Quick example

var currentLanguageId = 1;
IDictionaryItem thankYouMessageDictionaryItem = Services.LocalizationService.GetDictionaryItemByKey("Forms.ContactForm.ThankYouMessage");
IDictionaryTranslation thankYouMessageTranslation = thankYouMessageDictionaryItem.Translations.FirstOrDefault(x => x.LanguageId == currentLanguageId);

string thankYouMessage = thankYouMessageTranslation.Value;

Example with fallback

const string defaultFallbackMessage = "Thank you for your message! We will contact you soon";
// helper method to find the language - use your own implementation
var currentLanguageId = SiteLanguageHelper.GetCurrentLanguage(url); 
IDictionaryItem thankYouMessageDictionaryItem = Services.LocalizationService.GetDictionaryItemByKey("Forms.ContactForm.ThankYouMessage");
IDictionaryTranslation thankYouMessageTranslation = thankYouMessageDictionaryItem.Translations.FirstOrDefault(x => x.LanguageId == (int)currentLanguageId);

string thankYouMessage = thankYouMessageTranslation != null ? thankYouMessageTranslation.Value : defaultFallbackMessage;

Debugging IDictionaryItem

Debugging IDictionaryTranslation

Listing all languages in Umbraco programmatically

Umbraco Panel: languages overview - /umbraco#/settings/languages/overview

The simplest approach to list all defined languages is to use the LocalizationService class.

With given LocalizationService instance - use the GetAllLanguages method as follows:

var allLanguages = Services.LocalizationService.GetAllLanguages();

Debugging Umbraco languages

That's it, have a nice translation!