International Students: Your First Weeks, From Housing to Family

Yes. Your first weeks at a university abroad go much more smoothly when you can follow your roommates, your class group chat and your manager at work from day one. In Piou, everyone writes in their own language; with Piou Premium, you read the others in yours, on your phone, with the original one tap away. With family back home, free messaging is often all you need, and for official paperwork, nothing replaces a person. This guide is for international students starting at a university in the US or another English-speaking country.

Before you fly: set up your phone

Priya is leaving Pune for a master's program in Boston. She'll study in English, so she sets Piou to English; her parents set it to Hindi. A few things to sort out before the flight:

• Check your device. Piou needs an iPhone on iOS 18 or later, or Android 8.0 or later; the web app at app.piou.chat also runs in a browser.
• Set your language in Settings → Language & translation and download your languages over Wi-Fi at home. Once they're downloaded, translating messages you've already received and Face to face mode work without a connection, which helps before you have a local SIM.
• Know how you sign in: with Apple, Google or an email address. Your phone number is verified once at sign-up so contacts can find you; it's never used to sign in.
• Get your family on Piou before you leave and create a family group. When everyone writes in a language the others read, there's nothing to translate, and it's all free.

In the US, Premium is $5.99 a month or $47.99 a year; in India, it's ₹179 a month or ₹1,399 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.

Arrival: housing and roommates

At key pickup, Face to face mode handles practical questions: one phone placed between you and the building manager detects who's speaking, shows the translation and reads it aloud, and the other person doesn't need the app. The lease and the move-in inspection are another matter. Get a human translation or help from your international student office, and don't sign anything you don't understand.

With roommates, create a group and pin the house rules. Here's the kind of thing you'll read:

• Lucas, from São Paulo, writes: “Alguém viu meu carregador? Deixei na sala ontem à noite.”
• Priya reads something like: “Has anyone seen my charger? I left it in the living room last night.”

Group polls about chores, groceries or a movie night are translated for every Premium member. And when you're heading home late in a city you don't know yet, live location sharing, for a duration you choose, reassures everyone.

Class group chats and campus offices

If your English is still catching up, set Piou to your own language: class chat messages then arrive translated, and “Show original” gives you the English. A simple routine is to read the original first and check yourself against the translation. Ji-ho, from Busan, does exactly that, and he writes his replies in English whenever he can. Piou detects each message's language, so classmates read his English as written.

Campus offices mostly use email and PDFs, which Piou doesn't translate. For enrollment, housing or immigration paperwork, the international student office is the right place to ask.

A part-time job: understanding instructions

Shift swaps, schedules, a manager's instructions: a team group where everyone reads in their own language prevents a lot of mistakes. Ask for times and dates in writing, and confirm with a reaction. The employment contract itself needs a human translation if you don't fully understand it. Rules about working on a student visa vary by country and by visa, so check with your international student office and official government sources before you take a job.

Staying close to family

Between you and your parents, everything is free: texts, voice messages, photos, status updates visible for 24 hours, and audio or video calls, with up to 8 people in a group call for a Sunday family catch-up. A few habits help:

• Set a regular call time that works across time zones, instead of waiting for “when we're both free.”
• Post a status instead of telling the same story five times.
• Give a trusted roommate a way to reach your family, with everyone's agreement. If Priya gets sick, Lucas can write in English: “Priya has a fever, we're at the campus health center, she's okay.” With Premium, her mom reads: “प्रिया को बुखार है, हम कैंपस हेल्थ सेंटर में हैं, वह ठीक है।”

One honest limit: Hindi typed in Latin letters (“beta theek ho?”) may not be recognized as Hindi. A Hindi keyboard gives the translation much better odds. When your parents visit for graduation, Face to face mode on your phone lets them talk with your roommates or your advisor, even offline.

In an emergency, call the local emergency number from your phone itself: Piou can't call regular phone numbers.

What translation won't do for you

• Slang and abbreviations like “ngl,” “lowkey” or “bet” come through badly, and so do messages that mix two languages.
• Sarcasm and humor often get translated word for word.
• Names of courses, buildings and places can come out garbled.
• Politeness levels in Korean, Japanese or Thai are poorly rendered, so keep messages to professors simple and polite.
• Anything binding (a lease, a job contract, health, money, exams) needs a professional, an official office or a human translation.