Switching locale is easy. Matching tone, date formats, and support paths took longer than the toggle.
Our early bilingual mistake was treating Arabic as a mirror of English. Same paragraphs, reversed direction, job done. Readers noticed. Arabic copy that feels translated reads like a brochure, not a product voice.
We now write the two languages as siblings, not clones. Sometimes the Arabic piece is shorter. Sometimes the English piece carries a joke that does not travel. That is fine.
Operational details mattered more than we expected: phone number formatting, which calendar people glance at, and whether support replies in the visitor’s language without bouncing between inboxes.
If you only budget for UI mirroring, you will ship a switch that looks complete and still feels off.
Keywords: bilingual, Arabic, English, UX, MENA