A five-star review arrives in German. Then one in Spanish. Then a two-star in French that you can only half make out. If you run a hotel, a restaurant near anything touristy, or a business in a city with a mixed population, this is a weekly event.

Most owners do one of two things: ignore them, or paste a machine translation and hope. There's a better approach, and it takes about the same amount of effort.

The rule: reply in their language, with your own underneath

The best-practice format is a short reply in the reviewer's language followed by the same message in your primary business language. Like this:

Vielen Dank für Ihren Besuch und für die netten Worte! Wir freuen uns sehr, dass es Ihnen gefallen hat.

Thank you for visiting and for the kind words — we're delighted you enjoyed it.

Two reasons this works better than either language alone.

The reviewer feels genuinely seen. Someone who wrote in Italian and receives an Italian reply from a small business in another country notices. It converts into repeat visits and recommendations more than almost anything else you can do in a review reply.

Your local customers can still read it. This is the part people forget. Most readers of your profile are local, and a wall of replies in languages they don't speak makes your page feel like it isn't for them. Including your own language keeps everyone in the conversation.

When to reply only in their language

Skip the second half when the reply is very short (a two-line thank you for a five-star), or when nearly your entire customer base speaks the reviewer's language anyway. Otherwise, include both.

The machine translation trap

Translation tools are good now. They are not good enough to be used blindly for something as tone-sensitive as an apology.

Where they go wrong, consistently:

Formality. Many languages distinguish formal and informal address — German Sie versus du, French vous versus tu, Spanish usted versus tú. Translation tools pick one, often the wrong one. Using the informal form to an older German guest reads as disrespectful in a way you will never notice.
Apologies. Sorry-equivalents carry very different weight across languages. A direct translation of a British-style apology can come out sounding either legally incriminating or flippant.
Idiom. "We dropped the ball" translates into something baffling in most languages.
Names and dishes. Translators helpfully translate your restaurant's name or your signature dish into nonsense.

How to use translation safely

Write simply in your own language first. Short sentences, no idiom, no jokes. Simple input produces reliable output.
Translate it.
Translate the result back. If the round trip comes back weird, your translation is weird.
Have a native speaker check the templates once. If you regularly get reviews in three languages, get someone to check your standard replies in each. It's a one-time job and it lasts for years.

For negative reviews in a language you don't speak, the stakes are higher — get a human check before posting if you possibly can. A mistranslated apology can make a bad situation considerably worse.

Ready-made replies in six languages

Positive review, short and safe:

Spanish: ¡Muchas gracias por su visita y por sus amables palabras! Esperamos verle de nuevo pronto.
French: Merci beaucoup pour votre visite et pour vos gentils mots. Au plaisir de vous revoir bientôt.
German: Vielen Dank für Ihren Besuch und Ihre netten Worte. Wir freuen uns auf Ihren nächsten Besuch.
Italian: Grazie mille per la visita e per le belle parole. Speriamo di rivederla presto.
Portuguese: Muito obrigado pela sua visita e pelas suas amáveis palavras. Esperamos vê-lo em breve.
Hindi: आपके आने और आपके अच्छे शब्दों के लिए बहुत धन्यवाद। हमें आपकी अगली यात्रा का इंतज़ार रहेगा।

All of these use polite/formal address, which is the safe default when you can't judge. If in doubt, be more formal rather than less — over-politeness is never taken as an insult.

Does replying in another language affect your SEO?

Not directly, and you shouldn't reply in another language for ranking reasons. But there is a genuine indirect benefit for businesses serving international customers: your profile begins to carry natural language in the terms those visitors actually search with.

A hotel with replies in four languages signals to a browsing traveller that they'll be understood when they arrive. That's worth more than any keyword. The wider mechanics are in how Google reviews affect SEO.

What not to do

Don't ignore them. Foreign-language reviews are the most commonly unanswered ones on almost every profile, and travellers notice which businesses reply.
Don't reply "please contact us in English." It reads as cold even when it's practical.
Don't paste an obviously machine-translated paragraph. Native speakers spot it immediately, and it undercuts the warmth you were going for.
Don't use one language for everyone. If someone wrote in Portuguese, replying in Spanish is not close enough.

Making it manageable

If you get reviews in more than two or three languages, the practical approach is a small set of pre-checked replies — one positive, one neutral, one negative-with-contact-details — per language, verified once by a native speaker, then personalised with a specific detail each time.

Reploi handles over 30 languages and detects the review language automatically, so a French review gets a French reply and an English one underneath — without you touching a translation tool. Start free — 5 replies/month →

How to Respond to Google Reviews in Another Language