Joomla 3.4 Multi-language site functionality

Question

I am developing an accommodation booking website on Joomla 3.4.3 and i have installed Falang. My website must have two languages, default is English(en-GB) and translated to Afrikaans(af-ZA).

Before i go further into translating content for Falang, i want to find out what the 'Best Practice' for creating a Multi-lingual website currently is. I know that Falang is a great option(free or premium), but does Joomla 3.4.3 have the same capability?

I read that in order to offer multi-language with the built-in language switching functionality of Joomla, one would need to duplicate ALL content(Menus, Articles, etc.) and translate to the respective languages. After following multiple tutorials which may have been outdated, i got the built-in functionality to (sort of) work.

With Falang, it is basically the same process, just made a bit easier by allowing the user to do all translations in one area(Components-> Falang-> Translation-> And select the required content and language.)

Questions:

1- Is my above statement true in terms of Joomla and Falang multi-language functionality?

2- Has Joomla 3.4 made it easier to create multi-language websites without having to use 3rd party software? i.e.: Is there a new, easy way to work with Joomla multi-language? Or is it still the same old procedure?

3- Would it be safe to say that using Falang would still be the best option? (between Joomla 3.4 language switching and Falang)

4- Does anyone know of a Joomla Extension that can automatically translate newly added content without Admin having to translate the information?

5- Would Google Translate be an option to use instead of Falang?

Answer 1

From what I have read, it seems you'd prefer to have all content automatically translated. Seeing as this is most likely the case, I don't think Falang would be necessary.

Joomla has made translatable content so much easier.

Now I haven't ever used Falang before, so I'm not sure how easy to use it is, or how feature rich it is.

For automatic translations, you can use a simple and popular module called GTranslate which utilises Google Translate. Maybe also have a look at the Automatic Translations category on the Joomla Extensions Directory.

If you do however wish to translate this by yourself:

1. Enable both the Language Filter and Language Code plugins via the backend.
2. Go to Extensions >> Language Manager and install the Afrikaans language pack.
3. From here on, you can create separate articles, menu items, etc, and assign them to each language.

Maybe someone with Falang experience could shed more light on the extension.

Hope this helps though