# What is the best way to write foreign languages?



## White Rabbit Ninja

In my book I'm going to have several foreigners meet up with each other and attempt to communicate. I'm not going to translate what they're saying(unless I'm showing their viewpoint) in the beginning because the reader is supposed to be confused along with my characters. My question is, what is the best way to write foreign languages that don't use an alphabet, such as Chinese, Japanese, etc..?
For example:
I have Mr. Chen who introduces himself. Should I write what he says as *"你好，我的名字是陳先生。"* or should I stick with pinyin (Romanized words), and if I do that should I leave the tones or remove them?  "*Nǐ hǎo, wǒ de míngzì shì chén xiānshēng." vs "Ni hao, wo de mingzi shi chen xiansheng.**" *

:albino:

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## Ari

Hey Ninja ^_^

If it was me, I'd stick with the Romanized version because that's closest to what the character would hear. He doesn't speak Chinese, so he's not going to be 'hearing' the hanzi.
And I'd do the same for any language that doesn't use the Roman alphabet.

Can I add some advice, too? If you don't speak the language yourself, I think it'd be better to either ask people who do, or take whole phrases from phrase books. Don't rely on Google translate because it is really pretty bad...


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## popsprocket

Do neither. 

If you're publishing in English then using other languages should be done sparingly. A word, or an easily recognisable phrase isn't so bad, but whole sentences is pointless AND unless you are fluent in those languages you're bound to look stupid to someone who actually is fluent if they read your book.

From the POV character's perspective, the people they meet are speaking but s/he doesn't understand the words. That's all your narrative needs to say about it. You can demonstrate their confusion over the lack of ability to communicate, or perhaps have the character doing a little deciphering based on body language/hand movements that the other characters are using, but stay away from using their actual words.


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## White Rabbit Ninja

I had to use an internet program to copy/paste the words here because my laptop doesn't have a foreign language program on it.  blah. Google translate is pretty awful. I can't wait to purchase a program or preferably purchase a Chinese laptop so I can simply type in Chinese(I'll be doing that a lot in the near future-but not for this book). 

I really do want, at the very least, my Chinese characters to be speaking, though. It is meant to be confusing at the beginning, but not for long. I want the readers to be able to feel my characters relief at being able to understand and communicate with the other characters. I have several friends who can proof read my Chinese for me. As for the other languages, I'll be sparing in their use (unless I can find a national willing to help me out, heh).

But I will take your advice and try to portray the communication dilemma in other, creative ways whenever possible. 

:albino:


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## egpenny

Think carefully about using foreign words. Are publishers going to be happy messing around with characters instead of words? Will the reader feel left out? You might be erudite and want to show off, but you are going to antagonize some readers.
You need to translate the phrase for the reader. I can't be the only one that gets annoyed with writers that throw in non-English phrases and think everyone should know what they mean. Personally, if I'm reading a book that has untranslated words, it doesn't take long before the book gets thrown in the trash, or, in the case of Kindle, I ask for a refund.
Consider your reader, publisher, and printer. IMHO


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## Greimour

I agree with Pops... do neither.

I remember reading a long time ago a scenario where three 'beings' found themselves in the same situation. Unknowing of the others role within the situation, they attacked each other. Tired and exhausted, one managed to communicate a moments of rest - a cease fire. The one who called for the respite was not the English speaker - the main character took the actions and body language to guess the meaning and complied with caution. He in no way took tone of voice or dialogue to convey any meaning. The creatures growl may have sounded aggressive, but he didn't take it as a threat - he didn't know enough about the sentient being to know if it was their natural speech. Maybe he was using his most soothing voice... o.0

The third creature, trying to follow the communication between the two caught on when the MC moved away and half lowered his guard. Copying the MC and cautiously sitting on his haunches to rest, he tried to open up communication with the one who requested respite. Using sticks to draw pictures in the dirt and body language, they came to understand that neither of them were to blame and all of them were in the same situation. They then worked together to get out of the situation together.

A similar thing was done on a star trek episode, only between two people. I think, if memory serves, it was Spok who fought an alien he couldn't understand and likewise the alien did not understand him. The race spok fought considered themselves superior above all other races (if i remember right) so working with a Vulcan was an act of disgrace and the alliance was not always easy.

Spok didn't rely on verbal communication or the tones of voice etc.. for guessing the meaning intended. Doing such could have been misinterpreted far easier than actions.


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## White Rabbit Ninja

egpenny - I have no desire to "show off", I simply want to have a believable scene in my story in which characters who don't speak the same language attempt to communicate(without any electronic help). Like I said earlier, it's just for this one main scene, after that I translate everything, so it's not like I'll be doing this throughout the whole book.



I've always thought it was a cop out whether in books or tv shows, the characters on alien worlds can all speak English, or whatever the common language is. Universal translators are another cop out, albeit very useful in terms of not slowing down the plot. 

Anyway, I think I'll just write an outline for the scene and continue with my story and come back to it when I have a better understanding of how to proceed. 

Thanks for all your help. 

:albino:


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## Clove

Depends on what point of view/focaliser you are writing from: if the story is narrated from the main character - who cannot speak other languages - then perhaps write what they would hear, or think they hear? Obviously, if you want the reader to 'sound out' the words, then the character-based languages are not very helpful so pingyin would be a better fit. 

I mean, there are a few writers out there who do mix various languages: Junot Diaz, Giannina Braschi - but Spanish is considerably different than Chinese, and for people who have a Germanic/Romance understanding of languages, easier to translate.

I'd also like to add - there will be a lot of people, even from China and Japan, who will be able to speak English - albeit perhaps badly. In China, learning English is mandatory at school, and the fact that a 'foreigner' would not learn the language of a country they they are visiting seems really odd given our current global society.


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## playerslayer666

it is not exactly out of the ordinary to have a universal " trade language " that is commonly spoken among foreigners, which is usually some form of English. star wars did the same thing calling it " galactic basic ".

i have the same problem and just call English "trade" in my world. however it would be nice to have a couple of recognizable phrases. that's something any non bilingual writer will have a problem with. you ask too much of both yourself and your readers to have multiple different spoken languages, even if you can provide a translation it wouldn't help because they'd be reading everything twice. once in another language and then again in english.


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## White Rabbit Ninja

Clove and ps666 - My characters are taken from all over the world and dumped on an alien world and have to defend themselves from various creatures trying to kill them. All the humans group together for safety. The humans are from all walks of life from all over the globe, when they do eventually all get together there will be enough people from their countries who speak English so all my characters will be able to understand each other, even if through an interpreter. Also what I meant by 'I'll translate everything later' is the rest of the book would be in English. I wouldn't write a dialogue in a foreign language and then have a person translate what I just wrote throughout the entire book....yeah that would get annoying!

Anyway I had to go out of town for a couple of days and didn't bring my laptop with me, which gave me time to think about the scene I want to write plus the feedback I've gotten concerning it. I think at this point I'm not experienced enough do this scene with my original intentions (multiple foreign languages being spoken at once with no interpreting). While in my mind I think it would be a great scene, I don't think I have the expertise to make it work well enough to keep the readers engaged and wanting more, so I'm going to rewrite it. I may use one or two foreign words, but I won't have full on foreign dialogue. It's a bummer for me, I really liked the idea of it, but in this case I will doft my hat to the more experienced writers expounding their wisdom and move on. 

Thank you everyone for your advice! 

:albino:


ps. Although there are numerous examples in scifi, the tv show I was thinking of was Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis....the original movie showed the frustrations Daniel Jackson had when first attempting to communicate with the people of the planet. While the series started this way, it quickly went the way of 'all aliens speak English' which was just the writers way of not having to deal with inventing new languages every week. They didn't ever address how it was possible that they could all speak English, which I wish they had, it would've made the premise more believable. I love the show, but it's quite humorous that there are only three races of aliens/non-Earth humans that don't speak English in that huge galaxy of inhabited planets!


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## Clove

White Rabbit Ninja said:


> Clove and ps666 - My characters are taken from all over the world and dumped on an alien world and have to defend themselves from various creatures trying to kill them. All the humans group together for safety. The humans are from all walks of life from all over the globe, when they do eventually all get together there will be enough people from their countries who speak English so all my characters will be able to understand each other, even if through an interpreter.



Ahh, I get it. For some reason I thought you were talking about tourists, my bad. Nevertheless I do think my point would still stand: if you were to take a random representation of the world, the majority of people would be able to converse in English, Spanish, French, Chinese, and with more 'random' plucking you increase the chance that someone would know two 'main' languages and could thus translate.


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## Ariel

I know I'm late to the conversation but if I picked up a book and came across a fairly early scene in which the majority of the dialogue was incomprehensible to me I would put down the book and not come back.  Why? For the simple reason that I would assume the rest of the book would include similar situations.


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## EmmaSohan

If White Rabbit Ninja has a great scene in his mind, I think he should try to write it. To me, it's just like he said -- he can use it to show, not tell, a POV.

In the book I am working on, there is a scene where people speak in a foreign language (Navaho). It's short, I don't expect the reader to understand it, and the reader will know that. There's no way to take it out of the scene.


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## Elvenswordsman

Romanized characters, don't include accents either. Maybe make them italicized?


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## Lyra Laurant

Hey Ninja, I don't hate your idea. For what you said about the context, I actually think you can make it work.
What about writing your scene the way you want, and then asking people if the result was good? Trying doesn't hurt (much).

And regarding the original question, I'd prefer it romanized without the tones.


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## count58

I read all your conversations and I'm somehow interested in the topic.
I deal with people of different nationalities basically in relation to my work
and it helps if I may understand their native language.
But it just is impossible ... I only speak English. 
Fortunately, these people that I deal with understand that universal language.
So I must say ... write it in English and you'll just have to translate it.


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## Morkonan

White Rabbit Ninja said:


> ...
> I have Mr. Chen who introduces himself. Should I write what he says as *"你好，我的名字是陳先生。"* or should I stick with pinyin (Romanized words), and if I do that should I leave the tones or remove them?  "*Nǐ hǎo, wǒ de míngzì shì chén xiānshēng." vs "Ni hao, wo de mingzi shi chen xiansheng.**" *



Once doesn't speak in written characters. You would no more write an Egyptian pharaoh speaking in hieroglyphics than you would expect the waiter at the local diner to open up his mouth and have an alphabet soup fall out.

When writing in English, you use English. It is appropriate, in some instances, to use symbols, but only when they serve a useful purpose. For instance, I've seen writers refer to the speech of aliens or machines in symbolic ways, but only briefly. However, those symbols are either recognized alphanumeric or are, more often, understood to have certain connotations. For instance, "@#$@!$^" has a clearly understood meaning for most English Readers.

The one instance you would certainly use foreign characters is when they are being seen or interpreted from the point of view of someone that does not understand what they say or, in the case of entertaining mechanics, you wish to provide the Reader with a bit of knowledge and experience in their interpretation. In this case, it would be very acceptable to include Egyptian hieroglyphic characters, for example, on an obelisk that the narrator is examining and attempting to decipher while the process is being entirely related to the Reader in the text.

But, for dialogue? It would be highly unusual, at the least. There could also be publication considerations, since kerning problems and other presentation issues could arise.


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## SeasideAnna

White Rabbit Ninja. I like your idea! Perhaps with Romanized letters so you can at lest try to pronounce it. I guess it is a question of where you come from. In Sweden, where I live, we are used to hear so many different languages and no movies are dubbed. All children must study at least 2 foreign languages which is great! I think it is a habit of seeing foreign words and listen to foreign languages. 
You clearly have a good purpose with the chinese phrases so i say "keep them".
I write my book in Swedish, but the main characters move to France. I use some French words like _Madame, Monsiuer, Bonjour_or when I need authentic words like a certain authority. Else then that, I keep to the main language.
Good luck with your book!


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## Seedy M.

Having written more than eighty SciFi books, I found it easier (before I had the empire translators on all trader world) to do something like: "Blip dur gena." the alien said. At least, it sounded like that to Z. Z waved his hand and pointed to his ear, and shrugged with his palms up, which seemed to get the message across. They would have to use sketches or something obvious to communicate. . .
From then you do a _very short_ explanation of how a few basic words were learned and use the famous space for change of focus to take it to the next step.
This takes more words in the explanation than in the writing.


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