Hello everybody! Today I'm going to talk to you about writing a story where a character or your protagonist speaks a different language than the one you are writing in. This chapter was suggested to me by someone and so I'll do the best that I can to explain everything. They wanted to know how they could write in two languages without confusing a reader. I assume that they meant their character spoke a different language than they did.
Well, in this case you have two ways on how to show that your characters are speaking in a different language.
a) You should put in words from the language every now and then. This serves as a reminder to the reader of the person's ethnicity/nationality. You can even write short dialogue pieces in the other language. Although, it is sort of a pain to make a trip to google translate while reading a story. My suggestion to you is to either choose words/sayings that are commonly known or that have the meaning somehow implied in the book. The more you use the same word or saying, the easier it will be for your readers to catch on to.
The person that suggested this chapter used "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak as an example. He did an incredible job at capturing the language used by German people during that time frame. I highly suggest reading his book if you are writing a book in another language. You could learn something.
b) My second idea for you to do is make sure that you are writing common sayings from the culture you are writing about in your story. Be educated on the language that you are supposed to be writing. I remember talking about accents in "Writing Effective Dialogue". It's very similar to what I am talking about now. Ask yourself: how would a Japanese/African/Mexican/etc person speak if their words were translated to English? What things would they say?
That's all there is to it off the top of my head. There isn't a whole lot you can do to convey you are speaking in another language without confusing your readers, but if you do those two things well I believe you'll be fine. Good luck with your writing!
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