:: Foreign Languages In Fiction

I enjoy learning languages. Aside from English and my native German, I know a few others to varying degrees. Naturally, this frequently leads to the temptation to use them in my writing. What writer hasn't slipped the odd foreign phrase into a character's mouth on occasion? There's nothing wrong with a German character—especially if the story is set in a German-speaking country—greeting someone with a hearty "Guten Tag," and few English readers are unaware that the French hail one another with a melodious "Bonsoir" in the evening. I think this is great for flavor, but one shouldn't overdo it. For one thing, it can get silly. Yes, your story may be set in Tokyo, and yes, your characters may actually be speaking Japanese and not the fluent English of your dialogue anymore than those myriad aliens in Star Trek did—but there are only so many Arigato's and Sayonara's you can sprinkle in there before it starts to smack of contrivance. After all, when I spend time with my American friends I don't pepper my (English) conversation with exclamations of "Danke schön" and "Mein Gott!"

But I'm thinking of another potential problem with foreign languages in fiction writing. I remember, years ago when I was a student at UCLA, attending a lengthy talk by an Italian professor. The man himself spoke English well and delivered his paper in that language, but at one point he launched into a lengthy quotation in French. When the passage was over, he looked up and asked his audience: "I assume every one here knows French."

It's true, you know, what people say about assuming.

Don't make that mistake. Now, you may go muttering something about how it might well behoove American audiences to become more proficient in the languages spoken in the world out there, but do you want your readers to have a good time or do you want to show them up for not knowing that "Fakt Yo" actually means "That's a fact" in Czech?

This doesn't mean you shouldn't have anything but English in dialogue exchanged between characters of different nationalities. After all, it's great for a bit of authentic atmosphere. Just don't be like the above-mentioned professor and assume everyone knows what you're talking about. Let your readers in on the joke, or the mystery. Ideally, you'll put them in the same shoes as your protagonist or point-of-view character. The heroine of my first novel, Frostworks, is a Czech emigré named Milena who has been living in France for years. Milena speaks the language well, but every now and then she is still confounded by a turn of speech, an idiom, or simply the peculiar name of an unfamiliar dish. I let the reader learn the meaning of these things with her, sharing her puzzlement, her interest, and her eventual enlightenment—who hasn't had that experience, after all? It creates a bond with the character as well as a bit of authenticity. And most of the time, I have the speaker who used the unknown term offer an explanation before she is asked for it—or before my readers think I assume they should know, or don't care if they don't.

It's common courtesy, after all.