How you write a character speaking a foreign language depends on how deep you want to go.
Let’s look at real examples of the FIVE levels of writing foreign languages, then write our own story together!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we go over how to write characters speaking foreign languages.
You can watch the full video here to or scroll down for notes/highlights.
How to Write Characters Who Speak a Foreign Language
When you want to write a character that speaks a foreign language, there are two important things above all to keep in mind: (1) respect for the foreign culture, and (2) ease of reading.
Respect for the Culture
- If your character speaks a real-world foreign language, then it’s your duty as a writer to research it as best you can and portray it genuinely, don’t rely on stereotypes
- If your character speaks a fantasy language, you still want to know it as well as a real-life foreign language, so that it stays consistent throughout
Ease of Reading
- Above all, keep in mind that a little foreign-language flavor goes a long way, and any more than absolutely necessary will likely frustrate the reader
- Unless your story is specifically about foreign language/culture, you’ll want to keep the usage and mentioning of the language to a minimum
– There isn’t one single best way to go about this. There is a spectrum of ways you can have a character speak a foreign language in a book, from brief and subtle to much more
– Let’s take a look at five levels of using foreign languages, with examples going from least impactful to the reader to most impactful to the reader
Level 0: Not Impactful: Just Say They Spoke Another Language
Game of Thrones by George RR Martin
The silver horse leapt the flames as if she had wings.
When she pulled up before Magister Illyrio, she said, “Tell Khal Drogo that he has given me the wind.” The fat Pentoshi stroked his yellow beard as he repeated her words in Dothraki, and Dany saw her new husband smile for the first time.
***
Drogo touched her hair lightly, sliding the silver-blond strands between his fingers and murmuring softly in Dothraki. Dany did not understand the words, yet there was warmth in the tone, a tenderness she had never expected from this man.
- The easiest method of conveying a character speaking in a foreign language, best for when the language isn’t that important to the story
- It can also be used to show a character’s unfamiliarity with a language, or as a starting point for where they learn it. As the character grows, you can show their strength in the language growing by using other methods
Level 1: Least Impactful: Describing an Accent
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I grit my teeth and Venia, a woman with aqua hair and gold tattoos above her eyebrows, yanks a strip of fabric from my leg, tearing out the hair beneath it.
“Sorry!” she pipes in her silly Capitol accent. “You’re just so hairy!”
Why do these people speak in such a high pitch? Why do their jaws barely open when they talk? Why do the ends of their sentences go up as if they’re asking a question? Odd vowels, clipped words, and always a hiss on the letter “s”… no wonder it’s impossible not to mimic them.
- For when you want to go a step further and show what the accent/language sounds like
- Just keep in mind that unless you reiterate the description, or show it through dialogue, the reader will likely forget about it
- When doing this for real-world languages, be respectful, you don’t want to come across making it sound like you’re describing aliens
Level 2: Somewhat Impactful: Occasional Foreign Words
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Sunja shook her head at him, but he didn’t notice. Fatso fingered the necktie hanging by Isak’s suit.
“So is this what yangban wear around their necks to look important? Looks like a noose. I’ve never seen such a thing up close!”
***
Hansu quickly reached over to lift the load from her head, and she straightened her back as he laid the wash on the dry rocks.
“Sir, thank you.”
“You should call me Oppa. You don’t have a brother, and I don’t have a sister. You can be mine.”
Sunja said nothing.
- For when you want to convey that someone is speaking a foreign language in a subtle-yet-natural way
- For example, Pachinko takes place in Korea, but it’s written entirely in English. Having the occasional Korean word reminds the reader where they are, without needing to say “he/she said in Korean” all the time
- Randomly dropping words will get annoying for the reader, stick to the hardest-to-translate and most flavorful ones
Level 3: Impactful: Accent Affecting Speech
Harry Potter by JK Rowling
The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stopping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.
“Couldn’t make us a cup o’ tea, could yeh? It’s not been an easy journey….”
***
“Las’ time I saw you, you was only a baby,” said the giant. “Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh’ve got yer mom’s eyes.”
***
“Got summat fer yeh here — I mighta sat on it as some point, but it’ll taste all right.”
- For when you really want to show the difference in speech that someone has as part of their character
- You can do this by bringing in differences from their language into English (no articles, different tenses, etc.) or by literally translating things like idioms (“your window to society is open”)
- Just be careful, because this can get annoying to the reader if it’s used too often. This kind of dialogue is best with secondary characters, not main ones, unless the accent is minimal
- Hagrid gets away with it because he’s supposed to be an explosive, crazy introduction to the wizarding world
Level 4: Very Impactful: Combining Accent/Foreign Words
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
When they saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione, a girl with thick curly hair turned and said quickly, “Où est Madame Maxime? Nous l’avons perdue —”
“Er — what?” said Ron.
“Oh..” The girl who had spoken turned her back on him, and as they walked on they distinctly heard her say, “‘Ogwarts.”
***
“‘Ow dare you!” shrieked Madame Maxime. Her voice exploded through the peaceful night air like a foghorn. “I ’ave nevair been more insulted in my life! ‘Alf-giant? Moi? I ‘ave — I ‘ave big bones!”
***
“C’est impossible,” said Madame Maxime, whose enormous hand with its many superb opals was resting upon Fleur’s shoulder. “‘Ogwarts cannot ‘ave two champions. It is most injust.”
- For when you want someone to be very much at odds with the culture your book takes in, for example they are a recent immigrant, a visiting foreigner, etc.
- It’s best to stick to foreign words that are well-known, or easy for English speakers to understand
- When you use words/phrases the reader is not likely to understand, the main character should also not understand
- Short and infrequent is best, so it doesn’t get grating, and don’t use them at random. For example, in the above scenes, Madame Maxime only uses French when she’s flustered.
Level 5: Extremely Impactful: Language Permeates Dialogue
The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
In the hours that followed, I learned that Ademic hand gestures did not actually represent facial expressions. It was nothing so simple as that. For example, a smile can mean you’re amused, happy, grateful, or satisfied. You can smile to comfort someone. You can smile because you’re content or because you’re in love. A grimace or a grin looks similar to a smile, but they mean entirely different things.
Imagine trying to teach someone how to smile. Imagine trying to describe what different smiles mean and when, precisely, to use them in conversation. It’s harder than learning to walk.
Suddenly so many things made sense. of course Tempi wouldn’t look me in the eye. There was nothing to be gained by looking at the face of the person you were talking to. You listen to the voice, but you watch the hand.
***
This time after I stumbled, he stopped and faced me. His fingers flicked: Disapproval, irritation.
“My feet are stupid,” I muttered in Ademic, curling the fingers of my left hand: Embarrassment.
I moved through it again, focusing on my shoulder. I didn’t stumble. Since we were the only ones at the camp, I kept the smile from my face and gestured: Happiness. “Thank you.” Understatement.
***
“Vashet has explained everything to me,” I said. Reassurance. “I will make arrangement for my sword to be returned to Haert if I am killed. I will not teach the Ketan or wear the red.” Carefully attentive curiosity. “But I am permitted to tell others I have studied fighting with you?”
Reserved agreement. “You may say you have studied with us. But not that you are one of us.””Of course,” I said. “And not that I am equal to you.”
Shehyn gestured content satisfaction. Then her hands shifted and she made a small gesture of embarrassed admission.
“I have remembered a story of such. Would you like to hear it?”
I gestured extreme eager interest.
“It is an old story, old as Ademre. It is always told the same. Are you ready to hear it?” Profound formality. There was a hint of ritual in her voice.
I nodded again. Pleading entreaty.
- For when you want to show the growth of character in a foreign language: simple words change to complicated ones later
- The only time you should consider using this one is when your story is about learning a language or becoming part of a foreign culture, otherwise it will just be too annoying for the reader
- Even when it is used in the Wise Man’s Fear, it’s all still in English. Having that much of a foreign language in a book, even about learning another language/culture, would be frustrating
- I did something similar in my short story Devilese, and since it’s about someone learning the language of hell it worked there too, but this will be too much for most stories
Level 6: Dangerously Impactful: Language Becomes the Story
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither. Well, what they sold there was milk plus something else. They had no licence for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against prodding some of the new veshches which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other veshches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels and Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg. Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting this evening I’m starting off the story with.
- This is the first page of the book. Anthony Burgess only was able to accomplish this because he was a linguist, and he wanted to make the language the teens in his book spoke feel timeless, not dated
- His use of the “Nadsat” dialect not only shows the cultural change in Britain where the book takes place, but also gives the main character a unique voice, and masks the horrific acts he does later in the book through slangy-language
- Do not try this at home!
After that, chat voted we use what we went over and write this prompt: numbers stop existing AND a hooded figure stands in the woods, reciting numbers.
Here’s what we wrote:
No one in the tribe had seen the shaman since boar day. The light-moon was the last to shine upon his face, now the dark-moon hung in the sky. Scavenger was the only one who dared venture into the woods to search for him. All the others feared that the shaman had upset the gods, with his strange mutterings that no one had understood. Demon-speak, as most had called it, urging Scavenger to stay far away.
But he was not called Scavenger because he liked to stay put. As the dark-moon crested its peak, he silently snuck out of the hill-hut and pattered over fallen leaves into the woods. Chicken-legs they called him, for how fast his feet moved up and down, laughing on chicken day as they cracked the neck of the meal. They would not laugh when he returned at first-fire, perhaps finally earning his paints.
Shadows of branches reached like arms as his body dodged them with ease. Each blink brought new obstacles, sharp and jagged like flame. These were tests sent by the gods, Scavenger could feel them watching him. He would not disappoint by slowing down or flinching, he outran even his own heartbeat and swore he could feel even the dark-moon shine on him in satisfaction.
His legs felt full of sour milk and he was long past familiar territory when the clearing came upon him. Slivers of fire-light shining through black trees like the sun through spiderwebs. The destination he’d seeked, the blessing from the gods, a breath ahead.
Scavenger slowed, sweating from his running and the heat of the fire before him. No longer chicken-legs, he walked with the stomps of a bull into the clearing, and from the other side of the fire emerged a moving shadow. The shaman.
The deer horns waved on top of his dirt-crusted head, pelts shaking as his limbs quivered in odd rhythms, not quite a dance, not quite sober. A wild grin above his long, lion-mane beard, and eyes the color of fresh slaughter.
But what Scavenger noticed the most were what he was holding in his hands: rocks. A hunger of rocks, not enough to fill a stomach.
The shaman noticed Scavenger, snapping to him like a hunting owl, chilling his life-blood despite the fire. Though he had set out for this purpose, with the shaman actually in front of him, he didn’t know what to do.
Strange movements brought the shaman in front of Scavenger, still holding his hunger of rocks as if an offering to the gods. He was so close now Scavenger could smell the fumes of the ripe-water seeping between the gaps in his smile.
The shaman spoke something, but Scavenger did not understand. Was it his demon-speak, or slurred speech? Perhaps this had not been a trial of the gods after all, but a trap set by the shadow-king.
If this was a trap, it was not well-laid. The shaman thrust his rocks in Scavenger’s face and repeated his bizarre sounds, sounding more like songbird than man. Too beautiful to be from the shadow-king’s lips. Curious, Scavenger leaned in closer and asked the shaman to repeat himself. Now, his utterance was clear.
“Five,” he spoke, as if it were a real word. Scavenger narrowed his eyes at him, ready to ask the meaning, when the shaman held up the hunger of rocks before him again, shaking them around in his palm.
With his other hand, the Shaman held up all his fingers, spreading them like the legs of a spider.
“Five,” he spoke again.
Confused, I looked between his spread-open hand and the one with the rocks. Slowly, he lowered his tiny-finger, and at the same time dropped rock to the ground.
“Four.” Then he lowered his medicine finger and dropped rock to the ground. “Three.” Again. “Two.” Again. “One.” Again.
No more rocks or fingers remained. The shaman smiled at me and spoke. “Death.”
That word I knew. Death. Not full. Not even a hunger. None. Gone. That made sense, but the other words he’d spoken….
The shaman picked up the rocks from the ground, and held up all his fingers again.
“Five,” he said, and this time the word flowed through me. The shaman wasn’t summoning the shadow-king with these words, he was talking to the spirits in the world around us. Borrowing words from their tongue to bring to ours. The rocks in his hand, yes they were rocks, but there were also five of them. Just like he had five fingers. Different than four. Different than three.
He had shown us something we’d been blind to. Touched something invisible. Performed magic.
When we went back to the tribe together, I demanded that they paint me five victory lines on each cheek.
Be sure to check out the video to for a dramatic reading and more!
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
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Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Pakutaso