Printer-friendly version
Forums:
Taxonomy upgrade extras:
As I move forward with the Lock of Golden Hair, one challenge the main character, (Steve), will have to face is thinking in another language.
In order to communicate with his family and classmates he will translate to English and then speak.
As such, he will speak with an accent.
I want to convey this to the reader without making it really annoying to read. Any suggestions?
keep it simple
Work out the accent and then how it 'sounds' in written form. Rolling r's or dropping vowels or h's or whatever. Maybe add a word like eh, or aye, or wee/oui Don't overdo it though so it becomes hard to read. Just stick with a few or even one basic thing to show it. Once you have it set the reader will do it almost automatically.
Kris
Accents
Please keep in mind that for some of us out here english is not our first language.
I read english by the spelling and have big difficulties figuring out such mangled words ;-)
M
Martina
Me is with accent speaking
I wouldn't try to capture an accent perfectly through phonetic spelling a la Mark Twain. This can get oppressive. Better too little than too much. A little change in spelling goes a long way, since the reader will imagine what it sounds like to him or her. A few heavy cues at the beginning of a paragraph of dialogue will carry the sound of the voice along in the reader's "ear" with only an occasional prompt after that. Sometimes an occasional change in syntax that resembles the nonenglish version will do as much as a dozen creatively spelled words to help the reader hear an accent in their head (e.g. "For this you got me out of bed?" instead of "You got me out of bed for this?" in the case of Yiddish or German). That's about all I've discovered as a reader + in my own attempts at conveying accents in text. What seems to work for me.
~hugs, Veronica
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
Just as a quick suggestion,
Just as a quick suggestion, just figure out a few common words that would be altered, and use those.
Just as the French tend to use a 'zed' sound instead of 'th', or the Germans using the 'vee' instead of the 'double-you'. (Vhich one did you vant?) (Zis is nice)
You can also _lose_ the accent after you've made your point. Don't drive yourself or your audience to distraction by trying to maintain it through the entire story. I mean, it's not like this actual speech. Here, it doesn't matter if Robin Hood loses his accent :)
BW
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Not to be a nitpick
But, I am Russian, and I've been studying English from since I was five. I am just as likely to think in English as I am in Russian, and there are times when I... can easily convey my thoughts aloud in English but have to struggle a bit to do the same in Russian - all the while I can understand both just fine.
The reason is simple, according to many studies those who are truly multilingual study not how the word is translated, but what it means instead, so "apple" and "Ñблоко" yield the same visual que for me, for example.
Okay, sorry for rambling, but what I wanted to say is that the replacement of languages as you want to make it, is a bit implausible for me. I think it should be less of an accent (unless muscle memory was primarily affected, so Steve moves his vocal apparatus in English way no longer) but a little of syntax, of sentence structuring alteration.
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Accent isn't the only 'clue' you should offer
I have worked in Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden ... and 'misuse' of English words is usually the best clue of the speaker's native language. Usually because, as you suggest, they think in their native language and 'translate' to English.
To give a couple of examples. Arranging a meeting with a German in public, an English speaker would say "Be at XYZ by 3pm." A German speaker, when trying to state the same intent, is likely to say "Be at XYZ until 3pm." The German is not suggesting that he will be gone if you haven't turned up when the clock strikes 3. He is merely translating the german phrase on a word-by-word basis. Frenchmen often insert unnecessary articles (the, an, a ...) because their native language has far stricter rules. Whereas you or I might say "I am going to school", a Frenchman, when speaking English is likely to say "I am going to the school".
Most European languages apply gender to nouns (e.g. la lune, le soleil). This might result in a Frenchman saying "The moon has risen, she is full tonight."
The Japanese (and, I am told, the Koreans) do not have plurals. In English, we say one object, two objects. Japanese says one object, two object. So a native Japanese speaker might say "the two car crashed into each other"
English sources words from both the Germanic languages (German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish ...) and the Romance languages (French, Spanish and Latin) Sometimes the root word is recognisable to one of those. But, in mashing words from two, or three, or even more languages into a single language, English has changed the meaning from the original. Sometimes subtly (Germanic koenig to King, French royume to regal) Sometimes far from subtly (Germanic schaefe to sheep - the animal alive in the fields, French mouton to mutton - the animal roast on the table) Indeed the word may be 'unchanged' (i.e. spelt identically) but have different meanings - 'particular' means 'special' in English, but 'private' in Spanish. These, as a class, can be found by searching for "false friends" on the web.
My suggestions are
(1) Decide on the language
(2) Decide on Steve's proficiency in English (i.e how frequently he will give clues about his native language)
(3) If the story line allows it, occasionally let one of the people he is talking to correct Steve. This would happen in real life, and it also allows you to reduce the number of times you have to 'make errors' as the story progresses. It also allows you to tell the reader the thought that Steve was intending to convey.
(4) Try to hear a speaker of the language attempting to speak English. In the US, go to a place where Latinos interact with Anglos. In the UK, it you want Steve to be a Polish speaker, visit a Polish grocery. In Australia, go to the Greek suburbs of Melbourne ...
(5) You are telling a story. All the above matter, but if applying them damages the story, do less, or don't do it at all. The story comes first. One very simple 'trick' (like using inappropriately gender for nouns) may be sufficient.
I didn't bother
I haven't read your story but my own current tale has a similar premise, in that the heroine has 'appeared' on another world apparently able to speak the local lingo. Internally she still thinks and speaks in English but her brain translates it on the way in and out, something she isn't aware of at the beginning.
All I did was to say that the local listeners noted that she spoke understandable [local language name here] but with an odd accent. Occasionally the words don't have exact translations so I've noted when that happens too.
Any dialog in the local tongue is in a sort of mild cod-medieval style to show that it is not quite current American English, but when she thinks to herself [in italics] she uses her normal pre-journey speech patterns. This seems to get the difference over well enough for the reader to understand what's happening.
This saves a whole lot of complicated to-ing and fro-ing. My story is complicated enough as it is, thank you!
Penny
Accent advice
After having an English woman living with me for over two months, I picked up the "North of London" accent. And my personality being what it is, the thing stuck with me for quite a while. Disappointingly, the bloody things seem to be tiring of me and leaving. :(
My advice would be to pick up some words that are common in the chosen language and use them once in a while. Bloody, wanker, full stop, the plod, and Cherrio for UK English. Chica, Buoino, Mucho, Calor, friholis and a few others for Spanish (mexican). You could try Salaam Alaykom, Mutawah, Shukran, Afwan, and Mujahadeen for Arabic. You could also try grits, youall, Bruther, and howdy for a Southern American dialect.
Please, inshaallah, you will have fun.
Much peace
Khadijah
Same Problem
As a Southern of the US of A I often say I speak Southern, some American, and a smattering of English. The syntax is different and we often mangle plural verbs and nouns. I would suggest as others have of staying away from a lot of heavily accented words such as Mark Twain used in Huckleberry Flynn. Choose perhaps just one or two words just to get your point across. Altering the syntax is good too. (Help you I can!) Even use a few words of the other language. That doesn't confuse the reader too much in this age of the internet with everything being so easy to look up. Besides you can just tack on a short glossary at the bottom.
My own efforts with this was "Strange Happenings in Ragnarok County" and the "The Glade." I ended up doing two versions of the first because I was concerned that the more 'Southern' version would be too hard to read and understand. Like I usually do the original is at Star Dust while the other is here at BC. As for the 'The Glade' there was little intention of deliberately making the characters speak with that dialect. I only recorded what they were telling me. Kinda freaked me out a little when folks spoke of how authentic it sounded. :) Did you spot that Southenism? (Folks?)
Oh! On replacing one word, YES, is a good one. Most can figure out what, Ja, Da, Si, Ya means from context. Get the favor across with limited disruption of grammar.
Hopes this all helps!
hugs!
Grover
Lost in Translation
It seems like the real sticky problem here is that your character will be thinking in Ancient Norwegian (or whatever) but the story will be written in English, so you can't literally write what the character is thinking. You might have more luck dealing with the Ancient part than the Norwegian (or whatever) part. When Stan Lee was writing The Mighty Thor, he had him speak in archaic English, a sort of melange of Shakespeare and King James: "Verily, thou art a worthy foe!" The tone of your story seems light enough that you could get away with something similar. Have Steve use some outdated words or medieval metaphors and forget the right words for modern technology.