AnalisDestiny

One of the character's I have created in my story speaks French, and English. While the story I'm writing is in English, this particular character has some spoken dialogue in French.

Any time I've read a story where there is dual languages spoken, I've seen it handled a couple different ways:

1. You read the line in another language, and then at the end of the chapter, all the lines are translated. This means after reading something you don't understand, you have to scroll through the chapter to find the translated line, scroll back to read, and so on.

or

2. You read the line in another language, and right after it, usually in paranthesis is the translated line.

The first one irks me because you lose you place, and the scrolling is annoying. The second one seems to ruin the flow of the story.

So what is the best way to handle dual language dialogue?

Dephere

I find it nice when a book uses the foreign language only on parts where the dialogue is not integral to the story, such as reactionary lines. You know, little things that the reader does not need to know, but is there to show the second language.

Or use French, but make it so it can be guessed at what is being said. Or let the rest of the paragraph aim the reader in the right direction.

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cbrmale

I have written a MS which is set in Russia where the main narrator is English speaking, but some Russian dialogue goes on around him. From time to time the point of view shifts to his multi-lingual Russian girlfriend.

I handled Russian dialogue mostly by giving enough clues to let the reader 'guess' what is being said. Or as one reviewer said 'I didn't know what she was saying but I knew what exactly she was saying.' In other parts, there are multi-lingual conversations, so she can turn the dialogue from Russian to English and back again.

When the girl is the narrator and with Russian-speakers only, she says to herself something like she is glad to be able to speak Russian again and the rest of her point of view is written in English but assumed to be a Russian conversation.

When the girl is speaking English, she has a stilted way of speaking. For example: "I am interested to know why Western guys are hot for Russian girls." and "Do you not like Western girls then?" This shows English is her second language and also gives her a distinctive way of speaking.

One person who reviewed the finished MS says the language transitions were clever and she enjoyed the challenge. Another guy who read it says the blocks of Russian dialogue broke the flow of the storyline and he struggled with it (but he is a bit dim). C'est la vie?

lisajane

The novel I'm currently reading has Russian speaking characters in it, and that's how the author has managed it. There are two ways of this (so far) that have been shown in the novel:

- stating that the conversation is in Russian, but written in English

- one character speaks English, and the other speaks Russian, in the same conversation, but everything is written in English. I'm not going through the novel to find out exactly how it was done, but it was like 'In Russian: "written in English"', then, 'In English: "Written in English"', so before each line of dialogue, that language was stated.

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Nickie

What I would suggest is only to use phrases in a foreign language that are understood (or you may assume that they understand) by everyone. Like "Bon jour" in French, or "Oui", "Non", ...

I've written a novel set in France, but besides the titles "Monsieur le baron, Madame la duchesse" I've got no real conversation in French. In my country, people understand lots of languages, but as I wrote this novel in English, I decided not to use too much French in it.


Nickie

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AnalisDestiny

Thanks for the help guys, that really cleared it up.