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How do I write with a FMC with a language barrier?



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Tue Apr 05, 2016 5:23 pm
OmegaEmerson says...



Okay, so I'm currently working on a fantasy novel. Basically, FMC wakes up in a different country, fluent in her own language (German-esque), but she has a heavy accent and isn't very fluent in the common language (English-esque). She eventually meets a translator, and things become easier as he helps with her English.

Up until that point, should her speech be written:
"Vat iz ziis? / How do you zay..."
With broken words, but written like she sounds

Or

"What is this?" How do you say..."
With actual text, but it's described how she sounds.
"She hit vowels hard and was seemingly unable to pronounce "s" without it sounding like "z..."


-Also-

When I write in her language, should it:
She gave rapid nods, "Repedic, hacei!" (Quickly, please.)
Be written in her language with subtext of Enlgish

Or
"They spoke in Shirenian. It's so nice to talk to somebody who finally understands me!"
Be written in italics


Which do you think, and do you think it will get old?
  





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Thu Apr 07, 2016 2:05 am
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Rosendorn says...



Definitely avoid phonetic accents. Those get old very quickly, and are so easy to butcher. Plus they fall into stereotype categories often.

I'm assuming this is all from her perspective by your second question, so I have a question for you: why are you focusing on describing her instead of describing others? I mean, if the narration is from her perspective, then she's not going to be the one who sounds odd— everyone else is. If you're going for anything resembling a close narrator where you're in her head, where you're trying to get her perspective on the world, why are you describing what is normal to her? Why not describe how weird everyone else is?
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Fri Apr 08, 2016 9:42 pm
Werthan says...



I would just describe accents, not do phonetic accents, and I would use text from the language for short things but not long things. I also agree with the advice that you should have her write about how weird everyone else sounds. In my Zaahr stories, I tend to write them from the perspective of Choskch people, and, for example, I have the Choskch people who have to try to speak Leuaniean go like "the Leuanieans talk with a sort of lisping sound" instead of "the Choskch people replace th with s" because a Choskch person who does that likely isn't going to know that they're doing that, they're just going to be like "what is the lisped s for". Don't default to describing the more "exotic" language in terms of the more English-like language, write from the perspective of the character. And if you need help with languages and accents, feel free to ask me, since I'm decently knowledgable about phonetics, phonology, sociolinguistics, and a few other things like that.
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Dieses: Stirb und Werde!
Bist du nur ein trüber Gast
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You are only a gloomy guest
On the dark Earth)

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Sun Apr 10, 2016 12:04 am
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Pretzelstick says...



I just wanted to get give my two cents here, as I am a bilingual speaker from birth. Anyways, in my experience it's quite tricky to write accents and integrate them into your novel or short story effortlessly. But just to introduce this idea, dialect is so important. It helps you and affects your reading and better understanding the time period, setting, and imagery. It can also tell you quirks or indicate information about the narrator of the story.

There are two extremes in the spectrum, you either as an author don't have the slightest idea of what an accent actually sounds like in reality; or it comes out as extremely annoying. That's why you have to do your research very extensively, go on website and hear recordings of people talk in that different accent and languages, watch movies in that specific language and turn on English subtitles, and then also watch American movies with main actors that use that accent. Even if it's just brief scenes that you can find on YouTube,etc. it helps.

How to make it not that annoying? I would probably just stay consistent, because in my opinion you have to draw a thread and stick with it throughout the book. So for example, in the book To Kill a Mockingbird, there is a neighbour (very minor character) who was one of the distant friends of Aunt Alexandra who always prefaces a sentence with "Sss". Well, she barely had one paragraph of dialogue, but you can believe me that it was repeated at every beginning of a sentence.

I've noticed that both as a writer and a reader, it helps tremendously if you read the passage that you have intended out loud, so that you can pronounce the words correctly and know how it sounds- outside of your head. I have to do this numerous, since I'm in the process of learning a new- but in the umbrella family(Slavic)languages.

She eventually meets a translator, and things become easier as he helps with her English.


You have to essentially ask the question, what type of translator is this? Is it someones who relies on Google Translate(which is my opinion is reliable for single words, but not phrases or sentence as it's usually grammatically incorrect and doesn't even make sense if the language that it's converted to). Are they word-for-word translator that painstakingly writes every single word down? Or is it one of those people that give general summaries that are short and simple-to the point- on the surroundings and what's going on.

Also, I've translated things for my families and close friends before, but I would imagine that it gets quite repetitive to write all the time. So you would have to limit it from one perspective, so for example if your narrator is having thoughts of what's going around, or if she asks want happening, make the translator describe what's going on-that's their job. Don't have double descriptions of the setting, leave it to the MC imagination but the dialogue to the skill of the translator.


I hope that this helps! If you do have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask me at all.
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