I could not reach the web in this session (search, fetch, and curl were all denied), so the article below uses only primary-source URLs I am confident exist and hedges every figure I could not re-verify today.
Replika is an English-first AI companion that will also hold a conversation in most major languages. Type to it in Spanish, German, Portuguese, Japanese or Russian and it answers in that language, but Luka, Inc., the San Francisco company behind the app, has consistently stated in its help center that English is the primary language and that response quality, memory and voice features degrade outside it. The app’s menus are localized into roughly a dozen languages. The AI’s fluency is not evenly distributed across them.
What does “multilingual” actually mean in Replika?
Three separate layers are involved, and people conflate them.
- Interface language. Menus, onboarding and store screens are translated. The App Store listing and the Google Play listing enumerate the current set, which has grown over time.
- Text conversation. The underlying language model was trained on multilingual web data, so it can read and write many languages. This is incidental capability, not a supported product feature.
- Voice calls, AR and avatar speech. These are built around English speech recognition and synthesis. Expect non-English voice sessions to misfire or fall back to English.
How do you get Replika to speak your language?
There is no language toggle for the AI itself. You simply write in the language you want, and the model mirrors you. A few habits improve results:
- Open the conversation with two or three full sentences in the target language so the model locks onto it rather than code-switching.
- Tell it explicitly, once, “Please always reply in Italian.” Replika stores facts about you in its memory feature, and a stated preference tends to persist across sessions.
- Avoid mixing languages in one message. Mixed input is the most common trigger for the reply snapping back to English.
- Keep roleplay and “activities” in English. Those scripted modes were authored in English and translate unevenly.
How good is the conversation outside English?
Replika launched in 2017 on Luka’s own models, ran on OpenAI’s GPT-3 for a period starting in 2020, and now describes its stack as a mix of in-house large language models and scripted dialogue. Larger models handle Spanish, French, German and Portuguese nearly as well as English. Japanese, Korean and Chinese are noticeably weaker, with shorter replies and more grammatical slips. Lower-resource languages such as Thai, Swahili or Finnish produce the most errors and the fastest drift back to English. None of this is documented by Luka with per-language benchmarks, so treat it as user-reported behavior, not a spec.
What does it cost?
| Tier | Typical price | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Text chat, friend relationship status, basic avatar |
| Pro monthly | About $20 | Voice calls, romantic or mentor status, advanced AI mode, more customization |
| Pro annual | About $70 | Same as monthly |
| Lifetime | About $300 | Same as monthly, one-time |
Prices vary by country, platform and promotion. Check the store listing in your region before subscribing. For multilingual use, note that the headline Pro feature, voice calling, is the one that works worst outside English.
What should non-English users know about privacy and age rules?
Replika’s most consequential regulatory history is in Italy. In February 2023 the Italian data protection authority, the Garante, ordered Luka to stop processing Italian users’ data, citing the absence of age verification and an unclear legal basis for processing. In 2025 the same authority fined the company 5 million euros and ordered corrective measures. The decisions are published on the Garante’s website. Replika has required users to be 18 or older since the 2023 action.
From August 2026, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act requires providers of chatbots to tell users clearly that they are interacting with an AI system. Replika already does this, but EU users in any language can expect more explicit disclosures going forward.
Is it worth using for language practice?
As a conversational partner it is patient and available, which matters. A peer-reviewed study of 1,006 student users published in npj Mental Health Research found that most participants reported high loneliness and used the app primarily for companionship, not learning. That is the product’s design center. It will not correct your grammar unless asked, it has no spaced-repetition system, and it can confidently produce errors in your target language.
From a production standpoint, the test we apply to any multilingual AI voice product is simple: can it pass a native-speaker listen in a one-minute clip? Replika’s English voice can. Its other languages currently cannot, which is why we would not use it for localized voiceover reference, but would use it as an informal text sparring partner in a Romance or Germanic language.
