A Character; Considering a Nationality Change

[-K2-]

In my current work I have a minor character who is French, and has a brief and fatal conversation with my protagonist. I've long considered changing his nationality since I have another character which must be Canadian, which worked out better making her French Canadian. So, I've considered other nations but someone who is from the UK, Scottish, Irish, or Welsh (no doubt from my time here) keeps popping into my head, Russian, German, and others used in other parts.

I'm wondering if anyone familiar with those languages would be interested in translating three brief lines of dialogue, which I'll then see how it all reads and go from there?

A word of warning first... The lines are extremely vulgar, offensive, and I want to keep them as such. The scene is just as, as is the character. Such character types in my story are ALL homicidal psychopaths, each with their own personal 'quirks,' specifically recruited from ALL other nations to terrorize the populace. So, it's a rather ugly character which you might not want to associate yourself or your people with.

The lines would be inappropriate for the forum, so if interested, please PM me.

K2

 

[DLCroix]

Anyway, you have to consider that this will probably need a side note, which perhaps to the current reader will somehow seem more like a technical or history book. In your place, I'd rather just explain that the character said such and such to the other; at most an expression, so that neither a translation nor a note is necessary, especially if the content of that dialogue is strong. You can even do it in a sarcastic tone, let's say your character, even if he doesn't know much French, still understands a certain phrase that is more or less universal in translation, like "m ......... f ... .... r ", or something like that. Even a Chinese understands that.

 

[-K2-]

Well thanks for the tip, but with a 'Tower of Babel' theme and characters from around the world throughout, I like characters either speaking their own language, code switching, or pidgin English. In this case, my protagonist has no idea what the person says, so ignores those parts and forces them to answer (usually with telegraphic speech) in English.

What I don't want to do is have my protag state 'she couldn't understand his first response' without him saying it. I'm not worried about readers not understanding either. In fact, I'd prefer they not understand any better than Kae...but...if they do know the language, it has to be correct. And unfortunately, I only speak English and bad English...I can't understand British...uh...English English, let alone Welsh or whatever

K2

 

[Danny McG]

Keep the English character

 

[Capricorn42]

Um, whatever the nationality, the words will vary depending on the dialect, IE a man from northern France would not use the same expression as a man from Marseille, etc etc. Come to that, a rich man from northern France would not use the same words as his poor neighbour. I'm not sure this is helping...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Um, whatever the nationality, the words will vary depending on the dialect, IE a man from northern France would not use the same expression as a man from Marseille, etc etc. Come to that, a rich man from northern France would not use the same words as his poor neighbour. I'm not sure this is helping...

It is actually. I get lots of people asking me to look at their Oirish excerpts and I’m no better at eg a Dublin accent than anyone else. But North Antrim (Liam Neeson) or Belfast I can do

 

[-K2-]

Um, whatever the nationality, the words will vary depending on the dialect, IE a man from northern France would not use the same expression as a man from Marseille, etc etc. Come to that, a rich man from northern France would not use the same words as his poor neighbour. I'm not sure this is helping...

Well, I'll not argue differences in regional dialects since I agree 100%***. Though I feel there are too many antagonist characters that speak a common base language (French), the bigger issue is the simple phrases don't seem to be directly translatable. I've had no less than ten speakers for both French/France and Canadian French, each with a different response...but more so, most changing the lines to something entirely different. Each person having their own take on what should be said--which then leaves me with no translation.

So, I'll likely chuck the French, and shift to something I can translate myself.

K2

***that's one of the issues that confronts my protagonist right off the bat with the pidgin languages generated for the novel (Sowfee-say vs. P-say).

 

[-K2-]

Welp, since there was no interest in a British based homicidal psychopath here, Dumont...now Kruger, is South African. Besides Afrikaans being more directly translatable, I've got some nice help altering English phrasing in the passages to reflect his disdain for speaking English. It reads well.

So, keep your old kilt wearin' crazies, hehe

K2