The Joys & Pitfalls of Writing With Foreign Languages

[sordid-humors.livejournal.com]

I come to my writer friends today with some food for thought....

Like many folks here, I read and write in multiple languages—but this is a question more-so of format and style, and so applies to everyone, multi-lingual or not.

I’m finding that when we write from the point of view of an English-speaking narrator, it feels most natural to write out the foreign language as Italicized dialogue. For example: 

“Bre! Blágo!” he bellowed.

Which feels much better than, say:

“Hey! That's lucky!” he bellowed.

The inclusion of the original language as it was heard by the narrator feels more authentic and helps to keep readers firmly in the world of the narrative. The first example is by far the more popular way of going about foreign-language inclusion… until you get into Cyrillic-based languages, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, or any language straying outside of the Romanized alphabet.

At this point, we as writers have a choice to make: we can either drop into Italicized phonetics (which are good up to a certain point—namely when upside-down letter E’s becomes involved, then it all dissolves into chaos and readers check out) or we can leave the language in its correct written form (sometimes jarring, suddenly seeing Kanji or backwards R’s in the middle of a neat paragraph) and drop down into footnotes for a proper translation. Either one of these options are squiffy, both having their own sets of pro’s and con’s.

Anyone seen creative ways to work with or around these interludes of dialogue? How do you handle this when the situation arises in your own writing?

My second musing—and, for me, the ultimately larger query—is what to do when the narrator themselves is non-English speaking. A good example would be a scene written from Fleur Delacour’s perspective during which she is conversing with her mother or sister in French. It feels natural to fall into the second category of translation shown above, where foreign-language dialogue is translated into English and written out in Italics to suggest the foreign language without actually including it. However, with this method we lose some of the intrigue of the language: some of the romance dies when we lose that connection to the original spoken language.

I’ve approached this writing conundrum in some different ways but have never been satisfied. One method I tried was taking the entire section—dialogue, inner monologue, observations and all—and placing it in Italics, as my narrator, a Frenchman, would not only speak in French but think and process his surroundings in French, too. The full Italics were to suggest his French-language thoughts. It worked… alright, I guess. Like I said, I wasn’t entirely pleased. I suppose to readers it made enough sense to be passable. The scene was ominous, lending the Italics a moody, stuck-in-time feel which was more-or-less appropriate.

We could take my method to the extreme, writing the entire scene in the character’s language of thought—so the above example would become a passage, 200-300 words entirely in French—and then following with the same scene in English translation. This could be cool… or it could be chunky and ultimately turn readership away. Thoughts?

At the end of the day, my musing consists of….

What is the best way to communicate a scene from a non-English-speaking character’s point of view when they are speaking with others in their mother tongue? Is there a way to retain some of the romance of the spoken language without clogging the format and visual flow of your page?

I look forward to chatting about this in the comments! It’s something I’ve been beating my head against for a while now….

Sapiophile, out. 
sordid

Comments

[jakuako.livejournal.com]

Hmm, this may have already been mentioned in comments (I'm way too tired right now to read through all of them and try to make my brain process their meaning xD), but I'll throw it out there anyway, in the hopes that it'll give you yet another perspective:

The way I do it (which is, incidentally, the way I've seen it done in published novels) is writing in to the narrative that the characters are speaking another language. Then I have them simply converse in English. To spice it up and keep it fresh in the readers' memories that they aren't actually speaking English, I may throw in some universally known phrases from the language in which they are speaking, or reiterate in different words in the narrative that they're using another language. Do you catch my drift? Here's a shoddy example:

Because the restaurant was full of ears, they slipped effortlessly into their native language, French dripping like sweet cream off their tongues.

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate the Weasley family and insert yourself close to Harry Potter."

In an attempt to buy time as she processed this, Secret Agent Delacour doctored her tea.

"Won't you pass the sugar?" she said, and when he had; "Merci."

"Will you accept, Agent?" he demanded, impatient.

"Oui."

Obviously this was crude and ridiculous, but there you are. :D What I like about this method is that it's not cumbersome to read nor unintelligible (unless, for some unfathomable reason, someone doesn't know what "Merci" or "Oui" means). It also gives the reader the option of imagining the characters using a language they don't know, or ignoring it altogether since, for some people, it's difficult to wrap your head around something you don't understand.

Anyway. That's just my two cents. Hope it helps! :)

Edit: Oh, and when it comes to Cyrillic-based languages and the like, I personally would use the Romanized translation and just try to keep it from getting too messy. Obviously, that limits you, but, you know, woes of the trade.