Exposing the current state name with ui router

Question

I'm trying to implement a language switcher where if a user clicks on "de" from any given page on an "en" side - it takes them to that page of the "de" side. If I console.dir the $state parameter, it exposes the values I'd want with the "current" property of the given $state. If I try to console.dir the $state.current to focus on the values I want, it only gives the parent state property (my current views are nested).

My current thinking is, I'm on url/en/content, and dynamically I can then have my lang navigation dynamically load the appropriate destination points into some kind of data attribute, pick those up with a custom directive where I'd initiate a "go to" and set my preferedLanguage value per angular-translate.

The key issue at the moment is exposing that $state name - again, when simply browsing $state the current object gives the values I'd want, but $current.state directly only gives the parent state.

If anyone has a better suggestion of how to do this (in a angular way - no custom cookie junk) I'm happy to take suggestions.

Thanks!

Update! CODE SAMPLES:

Object reference of my states:

var urlStates = {
        en: {
            home: {
                name: 'home',
                url: '/en',
                templateUrl: 'templates/'+lang+'/home.html',
                abstract: 'true'
            },
            home_highlights: {
                name:'home.highlights',
                url: '',
                templateUrl: 'templates/'+lang+'/home.highlights.html'
            },
            home_social:
            {
                name: 'home.social',
                url: '/social',
                templateUrl: 'templates/'+lang+'/home.social.html'
            },
            home_map:
            {
                name: 'home.map',
                url: '/map',
                templateUrl: 'templates/'+lang+'/home.map.html'
            }

        };

My States:

$stateProvider
        .state(urlStates.en.home)
        .state(urlStates.en.home_highlights)
        .state(urlStates.en.home_social)
        .state(urlStates.en.home_map);

        $locationProvider.html5Mode(true);

})

Controller:

.controller('LandingPage', function($translate, $state){
    this.state = $state;
    this.greeting = "Hello";
});

And Lastly, the output I see in the dom:

With this.state = $state;

{
    "params": {},
    "current": {
        "name": "home.highlights",
        "url": "",
        "templateUrl": "templates/en/home.highlights.html" },
        "transition": null
}

With this.state = $state.current

{
    "name": "",
    "url": "^",
    "views": null,
    "abstract": true
}

Answer 1

this is how I do it

JAVASCRIPT:

var module = angular.module('yourModuleName', ['ui.router']);

module.run( ['$rootScope', '$state', '$stateParams',
                      function ($rootScope,   $state,   $stateParams) {
    $rootScope.$state = $state;
    $rootScope.$stateParams = $stateParams; 
}
]);

HTML:

<pre id="uiRouterInfo">
      $state = {{$state.current.name}}
      $stateParams = {{$stateParams}}
      $state full url = {{ $state.$current.url.source }}    
</pre>

EXAMPLE

http://plnkr.co/edit/LGMZnj?p=preview