Hey everyone! Ive had a long discussion with a non-English speaker using google translate. now i realize it would have been smart to put English and the guest’s language in the message so i know what i was saying. 
I always make sure to translate the guests review. Once I discovered a small typo, (She does not include snorkeling gear), when she meant to say I do. So I was able to correct it in the response.
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Be very careful with an app such as google translate. I teach foreign language at a university and students often try to use google translate, however the result is a literal translation, that is, word for word, which often is not accurate and can cause dire mistakes in meaning. It would be more effective to have an actual person translate for you if you can find one who knows the language you need translated.
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good advice, twoworlds! I used to translate the translation back into English just to see how it looked, and change English words where I thought it would help (photo instead of picture, for instance). But I’ve gotten out of the habit. Thanks for the reminder!
I think it’s worth translating if you think there are many tourists speaking the languages visiting your city. If you do not speak the language you could always add a line in your ad saying “The XXX description is offered as a courtesy to prospect guests but we do not speak XX.”
Also, I’d hire a native translator all the way - I am one myself and have translated my listings, however I have my English version proofread by a native (English is not my native language), since I am hosting professionally and I want my listing to look as professional as my business.
I’ve posted this before but I use a free translation app and it’s brilliant. (Disclaimer: there’s also a paid version that allows you more translations per day - $9.99 when I bought it).
So this morning, I was able to test this app with our current guests. The mother speaks very little English, though far more English than I speak Korean. She really didn’t understand the app’s voice at all so we switched to google.translate and did much better.
The free app is also wildly annoying. It forever pops up sales pitches which isn’t so bad, but it also launches games that can not be dismissed as you are talking and or typing into the app.
I will test this with a few more non-English speakers before I give them my hard-earned cash.