Incorporating other languages

[El_Psy_Congroo]

I want my characters to speak other languages eventually in my comic but I'm wondering how to represent them. Should I place a translation in the gutters? I got used to notes in the gutters from reading manga scanlations so I don't mind but perhaps that would look messy? Another option would be to put the translations maybe in parenthesis underneath the non-English text.

If you have any suggestions or you've read comics that use multiple languages please let me know =]

[Chuu]

Is it a made up language or a real one? If its made up, you gotta make sure it's not meaning another word in another language by accident. Esp if its something inappropriate!! If you don't even want to put a different language on there but just imply it-- i think either putting words in parenthesis or brackets would convey to the reader that they are speaking in a different language. I've seen people put special bubbles too!! Good luck!

[heterodont]

imo unless its a language you know how to write in or speak well in, I'd avoid using the actual language because translation services like google translate often times use the literal translation of a sentence and it's extremely obvious to someone who knows the language when a translation program has been used.

one way is you can just write the sentence in english but follow up with guillemets/brackets at the start and end of the sentence to signify they're speaking another language. another thing ive seen people suggest doing is put a little flag of the country of origin of the language they're speaking in as a label on the speech bubble.

[shazzbaa]

I just use the basic angled brackets to indicate sign language, I've seen these brackets used a bunch for other languages so I think it's a pretty standard "translation" device!

[somvi]

I've seen it handled once by keeping the dialogue in english but the name of the language in breakout text at the bottom of the bubble. There were 3 people in the panel speaking diff languages to each other but it was quick and easy to follow without having to scan the gutters, look back at the panel, scan, repeat.

[scythe]

I've gone with the gutter thing when it was just a few sentences in the foreign language and no one's complained. It's one of those very tricky things when it comes to comics. No easy answers, but I will say that if they're going to be speaking in another language for extended periods, switch it to English as soon as possible. You could put brackets on it if you want, but that seems like it could get messy if it's all the time. You could try another font, or just do what movies do, which is to have them speaking the foreign language for a few sentences, then they all just 'magically' switch to English.

[El_Psy_Congroo]

@Chuu Its kind of both in a sense. I'll be using real languages but since my story takes place far in the future technically the spoken languages will have shifted. I'm not going to make up stuff for the drift, they'll be written in the modern equivalent.

@heterodont As of yet, I only intend on writing conversations in languages I've studied, but I think with some research I might do a few greetings in others. I don't think flags would quite work with my setting.

@shazzbaa I think it works well for you - especially given the sign language (must be a lot of fun to write and draw those parts =] ) but an issue that may come up is that there are a number of languages being spoken and I'd like to try to represent them as such. I might run into problems if more than one different language is being used at the same time =/

@somvi I'm not quite sure what you mean by breakout text (perhaps I'm a noob) but do you remember what the comic was called or have a picture?

[shazzbaa]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by breakout text (perhaps I'm a noob) but do you remember what the comic was called or have a picture?

Ahhhh rats, I've seen that panel too but I don't remember the name of the comic either.... the languages looked something like this though:

other thoughts--

I know @keii4ii uses different-coloured/styled balloons in Heart of Keol to represent different languages, which is a pretty intuitive way to differentiate a couple of non-English languages? Though it'd be tough to remember which is which if it got to be more than like..... two.

There's also.......... well, this is kind of silly because I got it from undertale fanart, but there's a character in Undertale who speaks exclusively in the Wingdings font, so since that's pretty illegible a lot of people draw it like this, with the "translation" overlayed

If you want the original language to be visible without having "subtitles" at the bottom of the panel, though, it might be a direction to think in?

[El_Psy_Congroo]

Nothing wrong with undertale art haha

The balloon thing is definitely something to look into but I did get a bit confused at first and had to reference back to remember which color was which. I might have to go back and change my original speech bubbles since they're pretty generic. thanks!

[demthorshie]

I actually incorporate language in one of two ways in my current comic. I have a language that I invented for the comic known as Pyll'arian. If the characters are saying something that I want the reader to understand, i'll usually change the color of the speech bubbles to create a clear distinction between the regular English in the comic and that language. For the most part, the language is spoken and shown using symbols instead of actual words. If the characters speaking in Pyll'arian are saying things in the perspective of their own language, I usually place the symbols, especially if the audience isn't meant to understand what's being said.

[somvi]

@shazzbaa This is the exact one - I saw it on twitter first but I can't seem to find it. Thanks for drawing it up!

@El_Psy_Congroo is the panel I was talking about, I believe it was French, Italian and Spanish all mixed in one conversation. Breakout text is anything that "breaks" the regular balloon just like the languages in the drawing she posted there.

[joannekwan]

Yeah, sometimes if it's just one word in another language, like an expletive, I'll just write it as is.
Otherwise for longer sentences I'll write it in English and bracket it. < Like this >
Then in the gutter I'll write *in Spanish (or whatever)

[punkarsenic]

Honestly, if you're writing your comic in english, for an english speaking audience, you're better off putting other languages in [ ] or < > and putting a note like **translated from x language - and notes for untranslateable words. That's generally what's done, and it's definitely a good idea if you're not fluent in the language / getting translations from a native speaker - if a native speaker reads your comic and sees their language fluffed up, it's embarrassing. #
although, admittedly, getting it right it can sometimes be exciting to see your native language - it depends on your capability with the language and who your comics aimed at. will your target audience care about and appreciate seeing other languages, or will it just be an inconvenience to them?

[isaacfriedman]

I avoid other languages like the plague (in comics) because I never know them as well as I think I know them. In movies it works fine (Inglorious Bastards is amazing) but in comics it comes across as disingenuous and using footnotes for translation is just weird. It's even worse when people use single words from other languages in between English. This might work fine with Yiddish or Spanish, but only because it's been used like that in casual conversation for decades. Throwing "baka" or "shiza" or "itadakimasu" into dialogue that is almost entirely in English otherwise sounds cheesy and stilted and fake.

[UzukiCheverie]

Is it a made up language or a real one? If its made up, you gotta make sure it's not meaning another word in another language by accident. Esp if its something inappropriate!!

lol considering there are like 1500+ languages thriving in the world today, I would say "Make sure it's not meaning another word in another major language by accident". (ex. English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, etc, basically a language you'd expect to show up at the United Nations :U)

but i mean i'm splitting hairs lol MOVING ONNNNN

Seeing as how Time Gate is, in essence, "automatically translated" from Adythielan to English (we read it as an English comic but the characters are, in their world, speaking Adythielan) there aren't really any situations where I've run into this problem yet, though I do have an English speaking joke happen later on where the main character is speaking a dead language and no one can understand what the fuck they're saying lol But that's very situational.

I would say go for the < bracket > method that's been previously mentioned, or the W.D. Gaster method that works if your language is written in unrecognizable symbols.

[jennula]

I think the bracket solution @shazzbaa is using is pretty common and well-known. In SPEJS, I'm just inverting the colors in the speech bubble whenever someone's not speaking the common language used on the planet: