A court has heard Marioara Rostas's father was unable to make himself understood by gardai when he first tried to report her as missing.
The 18-year-old Romanian was last seen getting into a car while begging on Lombard Street in Dublin on Sunday January 6, 2008.
Marioara's father Dimitru gave evidence that he tried to report her disappearance to gardaí that evening but the language barrier meant he had to return with an interpreter three days later.
Alan Wilson (aged 35) of New Street Gardens in Dublin denies murdering the teenager, who was shot four times in the head and dumped in a shallow grave in the Wicklow Mountains.