International Roommates: One Group Chat, Everyone in Their Language

Yes. An apartment where people speak four languages can run on a single group chat, where everyone writes in their own language and reads the others in theirs. In Piou, messaging, groups and polls are free; machine translation is the Premium option for whoever needs it. What really keeps a shared place running, though, is clear rules, short messages and a few habits translation can't replace. This guide is written for English speakers who've moved abroad into an international apartment share.

One apartment, four languages, one group

You've just moved to Madrid for a semester abroad and share a four-bedroom apartment in Lavapiés with Lucía, from Valladolid, whose name is on the lease; Théo, an intern from Lyon; and Marco, a grad student from Bologna. Your Spanish is still at the “¿dónde está el baño?” stage. Until now, the group chat ran on shaky English: Marco answered in three words, Lucía sent long voice messages in Spanish that nobody played, and important questions got lost.

Setup takes ten minutes at the kitchen table:

1. Everyone installs Piou and picks their language in Settings → Language & translation.
2. You create the group “Piso Lavapiés” and add the others with the invite QR code or link.
3. Whoever goes Premium downloads their languages on the apartment Wi-Fi, once.

After that, people write the way they think. A Premium user reads everything in their own language, with the “Translated” label and a “Show original” option. A roommate on the free plan sees messages as they were written, and once a day a banner offers them a Premium trial. Not everyone needs to pay: Théo reads Spanish well and can skip translation, while you need it to keep up. In the US, Premium is $5.99 a month or $47.99 a year; in Spain and the rest of the eurozone, it's €4.90 a month or €39 a year. The exact price for your country appears before you subscribe. The 7-day free trial requires a card: nothing is charged for 7 days, then the subscription starts automatically unless you cancel before the trial ends.

House rules: short, written down, pinned

Roommate misunderstandings rarely come from the language itself; they come from what each person assumes is obvious. “Keep the kitchen clean” means different things to different people; “dishes washed the same night” doesn't. Put the rules in one message, one rule per line, with numbers instead of vague words, then pin it in the group:

• Trash: Tuesday and Friday nights, we take turns.
• Quiet after 11 p.m. on weeknights, midnight on weekends.
• Overnight guest: give the group a heads-up the day before.
• Heating: 19 °C (66 °F) in the living room; turn it off when you leave.

Lucía reads the first line in Spanish, roughly “Basura: martes y viernes por la noche, por turnos.” It works because it's short and leaves nothing implied. A message like “it would be nice if some people thought about others a bit more” doesn't say who should do what, in English or in translation.

Polls: chores, groceries, nights in

Polls are free in groups, and Premium translates both the question and the options. They're the easiest way to decide without an endless thread:

• “October cleaning: which week do you take the bathroom?” with “Week 1,” “Week 2,” “Week 3,” “Week 4.”
• “Shared groceries: keep it at €15 per person per week?” with “Yes,” “No,” “Let's talk.”
• “Roommate dinner Saturday night?” with “I'm in,” “Not this time.”

One question per poll, short options and a deadline in the question (“answer by Thursday”): that's what translates best.

Money: written numbers, never guesses

Piou has no bill-splitting tool, and a clear message usually does the job. At the start of each month, whoever pays the bills posts a summary and pins it:

“Electricity, September: €84 → €21 each. Internet: €30 → €7.50 each. Send to Lucía by the 5th.”

Everyone reacts once they've paid. Two precautions: a photo of a bill isn't translated, because Piou translates the text of messages, not text inside images, so type the amounts into the message; and before you pay, check the original with “Show original.” A misread amount or date costs more than a clumsy sentence.

The landlord, the agency and the neighbors

To message with the landlord in Piou, he'd have to install the app, which he may not want to do. The realistic setup: Lucía handles that conversation and sums up the essentials in the group, where everyone reads them in their own language.

For the lease, the move-in inventory, the security deposit or any money question with the agency, machine translation isn't enough. Everyone should understand what they sign: get a human translation or help from someone qualified, and check official sources for the rules that apply.

For short-lived info, like a lockbox code on move-out day, start a separate conversation and turn on Disappearing messages: 24 hours, 7 days or 90 days, set for that conversation.

And when the downstairs neighbor comes up about the noise, or the plumber shows up while you're home alone, Face to face mode helps: one phone placed between you detects who's speaking, shows the translation and reads it aloud. The other person doesn't need the app, and once your languages are downloaded, it works without a connection.

What translation won't fix

• Sarcasm. “Thanks so much for leaving the dishes for three days, really” gets translated word for word: depending on the reader, it sounds like real thanks or like an attack. Say things directly, and kindly.
• Slang and abbreviations. “ngl,” “lowkey” and “lmk” come through badly, and so do typos and messages that mix languages (“brunch on domingo?”).
• Tone. A very short message can come across as curt once translated. A “please” or a reaction softens a lot.
• Conflicts. Noise, chores, money: settle those in person, not through a barrage of group messages.