CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I have searched both this site and using google but I can't seem to find any documentation on what enabling multiple languages support actually does to civicrm, except translating the interface.

You can translate the interface simply by switching the language of your CiviCRM install.

What multiple languages add is the ability to have a subset of the CiviCRM actual data to be stored in parallel in various languages (things like first/middle/last name, or event title/descriptions).

How does it work? I know it messes with all the db tables since views no longer integrates, but how can I make use of it? Can I also translate events, contacts and such, and how would I do that?

It multiplies selected columns in the database so that various language versions of these columns are stored together. You can use this by editing the translatable fields after switching the language; also, for some of the fields (first/middle/last name, for example), a pop-up shown by clicking a small flag allows to edit all of the language versions at the same time (there are some issues with this popup currently, though).