Multiple languages in comics

[Noorie]

How would you prefer multiple languages (from which you probably know only 1) to be shown in a comic? Should it be written on original language and translated in the same bubble, or should it better be all in the same language, but shown with colors, that they are in fact different? Or any other ideas maybe?

[SilentHamster102]

I personally would prefer a original languages, it's always good to see something unusual from other culture for me.
I used to make comic with multiple languages, and I used a * symbol at the end of the phrase and translation of phrase under the frame.

[Noorie]

Any thoughts?

[BoomerZ]

Older manga used to have dialogue in < dialogue>, with an * at the bottom telling what language it was in. What ever you do, don't make it hard for your reader to read your comic. They will just not read it.

[feuersichel]

I personaly don't like it, when it's getting to complicated. Especially writing in dialect. Like, english isn't my first language and it's just a struggle, when I have to read an ultra scottish acent :,) Or when the story has elderly people who spit every second word... It's nice and all but I don't want to have too much of a guessing game to understand the convo.

I liked the way Anfange did it.

Read Anfange | Tapas Web Comics

They put just some choosen words in the english dialog, to give a hint, that they are german (like: Meine Güte, what did you do?) Also when the characters speak in german, the text uses those things <>

[Noorie]

But what about when it's a completely different language and a lot of text? Would you prefer to see original text with translation or showing different languages with different colors and writing everything in one language?

[feuersichel]

I feel, original text is interesting but it kind of depends. If the different language doesn't appear much, having both text is good.
But when it's often, I think the magic of it gets lost quickly and I would probably start to skip directly to the translation. So in order for a fluent read, colored bubbles or any other indicator is more usefull, I think.

[Maxedrox]

Well, English isn't my first language, and I usually translate most dialogues, but there are some dialogues so iconic for me that I prefer to keep them in their original language, maybe you don't get it at first, but if we use... let's say... Puns and the English language have a lot of words that can be used as puns and even double meaning under certain circumstances, so what happens if you translate those phrases into other languages, most of the time the pun lose their meaning, and it doesn't feel the same.

[powerplantanimations]

When I was looking for an example, I stumbled across this from another Tapas Forum.

Also when I found the picture I was like "this art looks familiar" and then I realized it's from Mina Sundberg. I wonder if she's ever on these forums. If so, this is brilliant Minna, keep it up!

[Noorie]

If it was on similar topic, can you please give a link to that thread?

[powerplantanimations]

Search up "Characters that Speak Different Languages".

It won't let me link for some reason.

[system]

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