A native writer, not a translator
Copy is composed directly in the target language by someone fluent in its professional register, not converted from the English original.
LANGUAGES · ADDING A LANGUAGE
Not pasting a translated string into an English template
Adding a language to a site means more than translating the copy. It means writing the copy natively, checking every component against that language's real text length and direction, and telling search engines which version belongs to which audience.
Skip any one of those and the result looks like a translation bolted onto a site that was never built to hold it.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS
Four things, in order
Skipping any one is what produces a page that reads as translated.
Every component checked against real text length
Buttons, cards and headings verified against how long the same sentence actually runs in the new language, not an English-length assumption.
RTL layout if the language requires it
Navigation, icons, forms and card order mirrored correctly for a right-to-left language, not just the text direction.
hreflang and canonical tags added
Search engines serve the correct language version to the correct audience, with the English version staying the default.
WHERE WE SIT
Scoped per project, not quoted as one fixed process
How much work this is depends on the site and the language.
The four steps above apply to every language we add, but how much work each one takes depends on how many pages exist and how many of the components have already been checked against that language. That is scoped during the technical audit rather than quoted as a single timeline that would not hold true across every site.
STRAIGHT ANSWERS
Questions about adding a language
The ones that come up before anyone signs anything.
A native writer composes the copy directly in the target language, every component is checked against real text length in that language rather than an English estimate, hreflang tags are added so search engines serve the right version to the right audience, and RTL layout is applied if the language reads right to left.
Technically yes, but that produces the machine-translated or literal result this site avoids. Adding a language properly means writing it natively and checking every component still works with that language's actual text length and direction, not pasting a translated string into an English-shaped template.
Only right-to-left languages, Arabic being the relevant one here. A left-to-right language like Russian needs native writing and text-length accommodation, but not the bidirectional layout work Arabic requires.
It depends on how many pages exist and how many of the components have already been checked against that language's text length and direction. Scoped per project during the technical audit rather than quoted as one fixed timeline for every site.
Expanding into a new market?
Tell us which language and which pages matter first. We will scope what adding it properly looks like for your specific site.