Brand new story creator - multiple languages in a story

[caprinaholic]

I got a 4.0 and 3.9 in my college English classes, got published with nonfiction magazines, and generally excelled with writing my entire life...I've also been artistic my entire life. I never thought about combining the two until I tripped over Webtoons on a Facebook ad (I'm also a voracious fiction reader and haven't been able to read recreationally in a long time...it's been amazing). I then noticed they have lots of certain kinds of stories and it occurred to me that my own unique life would lend me perspectives to being able to write something completely different. I've owed and raised dairy goats for 20 years and intend to eventually own and run a farm. So...a story idea came to mind...and I jumped feet first into thinking something up.

I have my concept down, partway through the script (I'm not used to fiction writing, so did some research on storylines), thinking up the characters' looks, working on backgrounds with oil pastels on my work breaks, researching my chosen location and people...and my chosen timeframe and story gave me a wrinkle. Language barriers for the characters...while not having a barrier for readers.
I think I know how I want to handle this...but thought I'd see if anyone else has handled this scenario: I have three languages that show up in various parts of the story. And they're necessary due to having the protagonist interact with her own family and then two other nationalities of people who don't know her language. I will write all the dialogue in English of course... but while I need readers to understand what both parties are saying, I need to show they're speaking different languages. My plan was to have each language be a different color text and maybe the speech/thought bubble also. Any other ways people have dealt with this?

[Neverseen]

The color option may be a bit confusing to readers. You could just add a blurb before the dialogue like: I always struggled to switch from (Insert language) to (other language). The grammar never seemed to make sense.

[caprinaholic]

That might be a bit cumbersome. Might work for the first interaction, although she's not trying to understand them as she understands their actions and body language (incidental, short term...not sustained contact...one of the drama points), but she ends up living with a different people, and that part makes up a big chunk of the story... and somehow I need to show her speaking with her two companions in one language, the hosts to each other in another, action of the host(s) and misunderstandings because they can't understand each other's languages and then as she and her companions learn the host language, they can dialogue with the host people. I guess I could label the thought/speech bubbles with the language? Although they aren't modern peoples...I don't even know what to call two of the people groups...I guess if I do more research I could come up with something.

[Neverseen]

I'd agree. Maybe Italics and Bolding? I use italics when its not the native language but then again its much more rare than in your story.

[caprinaholic]

That might work... maybe I'll start drawing one of those scenes first then and see what I think of it before committing to it for the whole story

[silverraven0]

Made some example. Sorry it's crappy haha.

So, first one. You can use tw different bubbles. On here I made a long vertical one and two horizontal one. Since it's three language, I p two box on the bottom for translation. (forgot to add * to specify who's talking).

Over here, I made the vertical in English, which I assume the most used language in this situation. The other tw were in the not usually spoken by the characters.

On example two, I put the translation directly under it, so no box on the bottom, but bubbles must get bigger. The text need to be a little smaller or in different font (but still easy to read).

On example 3, I use bold and that continued letter (my brain can't conjure the name atm lol), to differiate the language, but it's in English. If this is only in two language or the different Language Wasn't really something that's often showed up, I probably wouldn't bother with different font.

Also, In this case you need to remind your reader outside the panel what language they're speaking of From time to time, if the language wasn't spoken often.

There's some other Ways like different colored bubbles like you said, but if you're still not sure, why not make some page examples and let your reader choose which one they deemed more comfortable to read? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Also, you can ignore the last one. UwU

[ApplesOverIndia]

One thing that occurred to me might be to have the "original" language with a lowered opacity and the English translation on top of it. This would definitely work best for languages that don't use the English alphabet (Chinese, Arabic, etc.), but could be hard to read for something like Spanish or French. But, it would easily remind the reader what language was being spoken and, if combined with a different color speech bubble for different languages, would be easy to identify and remember what was happening.

[UrMom]

Other than what has already been suggested, I've seen some people use brackets '[]', to indicate multiple languages you could always use those and '<> () {}', then let readers know what the different brackets mean in a note above the page or at the beginning of the story. There have also been a few people who incorporate some bits of the original language in via book or magazine covers, and using their language for foods and such from their country.

My comic intends to have 3 different languages too (Spanish, English and Russian), but the conversations in the non-English languages don't really matter and are mostly be a bit of character development, so I plan to not translate them. On the occasion when readers need the gist of what the character is saying another character will be responding in English. (The character's who are native English speakers will be speaking in English most of the time, while non-native English speakers will sometimes default to their original language.)
This works for me since Russian and Spanish don't show up a whole lot, but it's not very ideal if they're used for a good chunk of the story.

Good luck with your story!

[Kaydreamer]

The idea above, writing the original language at a low opacity beneath the English translation, is a good one.

My first thought was to use different fonts to distinguish them visually.

[summermcallen]

I once saw a comic where at first the language is written with a translation note under and later (not so long... maybe 1 chapter) it switched to fully english with country-flags in the speech bubble to symbolize that its another language. for me this concept was perfect. at first its hard and you check yourself that you wouldn't understand it and then you can memorize this feeling for the characters that don't understand it I hope you understand what I mean XD

[kitkatxk]

I am writing a novel where my character has traveled abroad from Thailand to Korea with his boyfriend and two of his friends. He doesn't speak Korean. So what I did was I actually had The boyfriend speak Korean because in his backstory he lived there for a few years for college. And then had one of the friends know it because he is an international singer who can speak multiple languages. Not all of them perfectly of course but some more fluently than others. So I have this transition in my novels where I show my main character feeling lost as conversations go over his head. I have other characters noticing and then apologizing and slowing down and explaining things. Then I have One of my Korean characters speak English(Since she is from the states) which my main character understands but speaks not very well. So for a few chapters he has pretty broken conversations with the other characters and I make sure to convey that.

I like your different colors for different languages. I also think you should put a little key at the top of your chapters for what the colors mean. Have it as a standard at the top of every chapter to remind people. Then just make sure to convey really well the struggles going on between the three languages. I am also doing this right now as its necessary in my novel as well. It's hard but very rewarding. I encourage you to keep it up.

You got this!

[elyss]

I have a similar issue in my comic. I decided to do different fonts for languages. The added. onus is that certain types can flavor the view of how the language is spoken.

Ive also seen comics use country flags attached to speech bubbles to show the difference.

[unicornfield]

I once saw a comic where at first the language is written with a translation note under and later (not so long... maybe 1 chapter) it switched to fully english with country-flags in the speech bubble to symbolize that its another language. for me this concept was perfect.

I would be wary of using country flags to represent languages and would instead use abbreviations e.g. EN for English. The reasons are:
1) It can be insensitive towards colonialism.
2) A country may have multiple national languages.
3) It can disregard minority and indigenous languages or languages that aren't "the main one" that people often associate with the flag or country.

[caprinaholic]

Different fonts might work! The difficulty with using the actual language over the reader's translation...I don't actually know what the language would have been!

I set the story in really early human history...like back when the pharaohs were building pyramids. When there's just scraps of information about the type of people I wanted to make a story about. I'm having to paste together the character cultures and costumes from archaeology finds and extrapolating from both modern cultures that descend from the people groups I'm dealing with and modern tribes who live similarly to the situations/environments I put my characters in. Which is why the rest of you stick with fantasy and easily researched cultures...heh

[caprinaholic]

The key at the top of the comic would probably be a good idea also. Maybe the font/color combined.
There's definitely no flags to use, offensive or not, also because of the time period I chose. Basically, the two primary languages are indigenous (although I'm not sure even what to label them for the key...lol...maybe as possession of each of my main characters?) and the one that only shows up briefly in the middle is what would be termed "colonial" (a marauding empire, which sets off the entire story line). I'm actually playing with that theme a little.

[Legendofgenii]

I just add the translation below in brackets, or if it’s a small bubble I’ll just write in English but and ‘* translated for reader’ somewhere.

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