Language and Translate

Generally, android considers English as a default language and it loads the string resources from /res/values/strings.xml. In case, if we want to add support for other languages, we need to create a values folder by appending the Hyphen and ISO language code.

For example, if we want to add support for Japanese, then we need to create a values folder named values-ja under the res folder and add a strings.xml file in it with all the strings that need to translate into Japanese Language.

The value-ar or value-ru has a String.xml file that contains the same labels but is translated to Turkish or Russian or Arabic and etc.

If you want to add your own new language, Create a new value-** folder under the Resources folder
then copy the main English string file string.xml and paste it inside the new value-** folder then you can translate your strings as you like

The folder name of Android string files is formatted as the following:

• without region variant: values-[locale]
• with region variant: values-[locale]-r[region]
• For example: values-en, values-en-rGB, values-el-rGR.

EX: In your case where you want to add greek let’s say, you will just need to create a folder values-el for the Greek translation, and values-el-rGR for the country-specific Greek translation if you like to extend the lang more.

For example, suppose you have a string called “R.string.title” and the locale is ‘el-GR’, Android will look for a value of “R.string.title” by searching the files in the following order:

• res/values-el-rGR/strings.xml
• res/values-el/strings.xml
• res/values/strings.xml

Once we create the required files and change the device language through Settings > Language & Input > Select Language (Japanese), Android OS will check for the appropriate language resources available in the app.

In case, if the app supports a selected language, then android will look for the string resources in the values-(ISO language code) folder of the project. For example, if the selected language is Japanese, then it will load the string values from a values-ja/strings.xml file.

If any string value missing from the supported language (strings.xml) file, then android will load the missing strings from the default strings.xml file i.e. values/strings.xml.