Obviously, what we did was a manual translation, but we know that it's not a realistic approach to take when your application is of a considerable size. There is another way... well, a couple of ways actually!
Because AL projects use a standard XLIFF translation file, there are services and tools out there that can perform automated translations of those files. Are they perfect? Probably not, but at least they can provide you with a basis and maybe get you 80% of the way there.
A couple of examples of such tools that I've blogged about before are Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services and the Multilingual App Toolkit Editor. The service is for partners only; however, the application toolkit can be used by anyone, partner or not.
You can read more about those tools here:
- Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services: https://navbitsbytes.com/2018/03/06/al-extensions-translate-your-solution-using-microsoft-dynamics-lifecycle-services/
- Multilingual App Toolkit Editor: https://navbitsbytes.com/2018/04/27/al-extensions-translate-your-solution-with-the-multilingual-app-toolkit-editor/
As I said though, we're using standard XLIFF files, so the previous solutions are not the only ones that are available. There are a load of paid and open source tools available online for automatically and manually working with translation files.