Preparing an app technically to support multiple languages and regions, including text, direction and date and currency formats.
i18n is short for internationalization, with 18 standing for the letters between the first and last. It means separating text from code, supporting both RTL and LTR, and handling different date, number and currency formats so you can add a language without rebuilding the app.
In the Gulf you usually need Arabic and English together, and sometimes other languages for certain customer or staff groups. Planning for this from the start is much easier than adding it later, when text is hard-coded in hundreds of places. Practical tip: do not settle for literal machine translation. Write each language naturally for its audience and watch text length: a phrase can grow or shrink between languages and break button layouts. Remember the user's language choice.