Questions tagged [language]
Incorporating foreign languages, slang, dialect, and so on into a work.
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How does American English sound to non-English speakers?
The scenario is that a person from our present time travels millions of years into the future. A catastrophic event caused the Continents to shift and reform, and wiped out near all life. Earth is ...
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How to write dash after question mark?
I would have loved to buy her an expensive gift, but did I ever had money- for I was as poor as a beggar?
Is this sentence correct? I am having doubts about when to use a question mark. Is it ...
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Using different spellings for different characters in a story
I'm writing a story with an American character and a British character. I'm contemplating having the characters use the regional spellings when it comes to words like realise/realize or favourite/...
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What does the social idiom "not received" mean?
I am struggling with a use of the word "received" that I have never seen before, in conjunction with a social status in 19th century America. Specifically, in Margaret Mitchell's Gone With ...
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What is good introductory book to learn scientific academic writing and publishing process?
I would like some help to find a good reference or textbook that covers the following points regarding scientific academic writing :
What are the types of different publications and explaining their ...
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Does writing well in one language translate to writing well in other languages?
I have been trying to improve my writing skills. Most of what I write is in English. To what extent do you think that writing skills are cross-language? I am concerned about my time investment into ...
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How should I include an English phrase that other characters have confused for a character's name (due to a language barrier)?
In a first person perspective story I'm working on the main character has a language barrier with most of the other people she meets. To such an extent that other characters have confused a phrase of ...
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Would an equals sign as secondary language exact quotes be misinterpreted in literary fiction?
I have chosen to show an accented English that is only comprehensible to speakers of the secondary language.
The topic of translated sign language has been beat up and I accept that there is no ...
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My characters speak a foreign language but I write them in English
There will be many scenes in my stories that would be akin to this:
"He would like to meet both of you" - he speaks to them in a foreign language here.
Is there a better way to write when a ...
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Is using Swahili inspired vocabulary and words similar to Japanese slang in my custom language cultural appropriation?
For context the species using my language are non-human with mostly human characteristics. This extraterrestrial race is called the Ilya and they differ from humans in the way that they evolved to be ...
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How do you explain that the people talking English in a comic book are talking in a language other than English?
How do you explain that the people talking English in a comic book are talking in another language that isn't English? Let's say that in panels 1, 2, and 4 the characters don't talk in English, but ...
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What is this linguistic device called?
Consider these two sentences:
I was considering taking a taxi, but realized that Uber was cheaper and more convenient, anyway.
I was considering taking a taxi, but then I was like, "Hey, Uber ...
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How to list complex Spanish names in Last + First order in an index?
I am writing a book that covers Latin American history, but is written in English.
There are many Spanish names. Here I've listed some examples, and marked their surnames in bold:
Francisco “Pancho” ...
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Interspersing German in English dialogue?
My situation is this: in the dialogue I’m writing, the characters speak primarily English but occasionally use a German word for lack of a proper English equivalent. German capitalizes all nouns ...
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How to write in a way that makes it easier for an ESL reader to parse and understand?
This question recently began percolating in my mind after some conversations at work, and hopefully it's not been asked here before and is applicable to this site. After searching I wasn't able to ...
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Where can I publish poems I translated to Pali?
I have been studying Sanskrit for 6 years, and have published short stories in magazines. I recently became interested in Pali and translated some classical English poems to Pali.
But unlike Sanskrit ...
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Is it acceptable to call my grandmother, nanny in my essay
I’m writing a senior reflection paper and I refer to my grandmother as nanny just as she called her grandmother. However I’m wondering if that is too informal for an essay. Also maybe a little ...
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If I use symbols like '@#$^^' would this be able to replace the need for me to write out the curse word in the story?
In my earlier question Could I use strong language?, I was wondering if I could use strong language in my mid-grade book. This time I wanted to ask if someone could tell me is it okay for me to use ...
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Could I use strong language?
I know that some books contain strong languages that aren't appropriate in stories but in the end, I think my book needs them for extra violent highlights that would do well for the villains. I aim ...
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Would it make sense to use words from other languages such as Latin?
By this I mean, if I used a Latin phrase or used a Latin title for something, would that make sense?
For example, I was thinking of using a Latin title for an in-world book. Or a Latin species ...
Destructive Wolf
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Writing Deep Things
Pleasurable to many is thought evoking language and words never heard in the past. So how does one advance to the level by which they can form them?
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How should I include foreign language into my story if the main character/s is/are multilingual
I am writing a story in English and my main character is bilingual and of a different culture. The characters and narrator uses common words in the familiar language (e.g. Spanish).
Do I need to ...
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Is calling a character a "lunatic" or "crazy" ableist when it is in reference to their erratic behavior?
I am considering writing a line of dialogue in which character A calls character B (not to their face) "a lunatic". In the context of my story, it is clear that character A has a simplistic ...
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Any resources for writing in Anglish?
"Anglish" is a variation on modern English that avoids or replaces all words that have non-Anglo-Saxon roots.
I'm working on a story where I'll need to convert a lot of dialogue (just for a ...
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Explicit language in YA fiction
I'm writing a YA novel where most of the characters are in their teens or early 20's. One of my characters has some "colorful" language in certain situations, (e.g. she twists her ankle, ...
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How to have a character speak pidgin without inducing cringes?
The character Lee in Steinbeck's East of Eden is a Chinese-American who speaks in pidgin — until he explains to his boss, in very articulate English, that he does so for reasons of his own.
In my Gold ...
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How do I keep my character's gender a complete mystery?
At first my protagonist was going to be a female role, until I started having an inclination for male characters and the fact that I am a total BL (“boy’s love”, stories about male homosexual romance) ...
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How are the limits of regional vernacularism/slang should be employed in a novel that is true to the area and time?
What's an acceptable amount of non-standard English that can be used to depict the language of a certain area of the South (Louisiana) without turning off readers? My current work in progress has ...
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Lack of Creativity with Language
I feel as though my mind is uncreative because I keep coming up with trite words and comparisons. For instance, I if I want to say something is the highest in some quality, I will simply say it is ...
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Writing as a non-native speaker
English is not my first language, but as an English student, I'd always like to write in that language... I have many story ideas but my skills are not that good to be a novel writer where I usually ...
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Should I write a foreign character's dialogue in their language? [duplicate]
When it comes down to story writing, it's always nice to have variety in characters. Such as a character who speaks Spanish more than English or is bilingual with both languages. But say if the ...
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Managing alien languages in Sci-Fi creatively
I’m writing a story where alien races are in constant communication with humans, but I don’t want it to be awkward or have to use language tags like “...he said in x language.” Maybe I could have a ...
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Would incorporating a constructed language into my story this way cause confusion later?
This is part of the story I'm working on:
“Imikagaw” a feminine voice called out as she put her hand on the back of the man in cape. “Usamiakusta ow ihsataw aw amas Enna “Uoyustih ag imikagaw aw nah ...
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How to write a character who speaks with Russian mannerisms
One of my characters is Russian and speaks English as a second language. I know that people with Russian accents tend to leave out words like “the” and “a” because they don’t exist in Russian.
My ...
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I'm writing a prologue from the POV of a non-English-speaking character. How should I write the dialogue?
Picturing this in movie form would be easy. I would have the character speak their native language in the scene and place subtitles. But I do not have this luxury in writing.
It would be weird to ...
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Using "her/him" twice in a sentence
I'm an English learner, and I had a question about writing "her" twice in one sentence. For example, what would sound better for formal writing? (This is not an actual sentence that I'm using.)
This ...
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How do I write dialogue as heard by a POV character who isn't fluent in the language?
So I'm writing a story during the course of which my main, first-person-POV character learns another language, one used heavily in her surrounding. This generally works, but I regularly get stuck on ...
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What word would people with outdated technology make up for a plane? [closed]
In my story, my characters live in the wilderness, and they have no modern technology. They do see ruins from the past (from now) but other than that they have no idea how advanced other parts of the ...
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Which language to choose: my native language or English? [duplicate]
I want to right screen play, but every time I think about writing, the first question that pops in my head is which one to choose: my native language or English?
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Capital lettering in old Italian names
I want to use the name Leonardo da Vinci name for a presentation, but I I can't fit his whole name and would only like to use "da Vinci"
My question is...which is more proper, using "Da Vinci" with a ...
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Is there a way to generate a list of the most used connector words and phrases?
I need to learn Spanish and German for my short novel and I need to learn the language fast.
One thing I wanted to do is to learn the 100 most used connector words and learn to write short and simple ...
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Foreign names with complex pronunciations in an English translation
I couldn't find an answer from the SE archives, so here goes. I'm doing a rough translation of a published novel of mine into English (from a Nordic language), and I'm left scratching my head about ...
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Using different times for different narrative purposes
I'm writing a biography. And I want it to be written in English, although I'm not a native speaker. Can I use different times to highlight different narratives, like this:
Present - for describing ...
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Awkward language translation
So I’m currently writing a book that takes place in Finland, though I am American and speak English. My main character’s name can be used as a play on words, and people use it to mock him throughout ...
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Switching languages within dialogue [duplicate]
I'm writing a story which requires frequent switching between languages, sometimes in the same sentence.
I thought about writing the foreign language in italics, but the problem is that I already use ...
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Should I stick with American terminology in my English set young adult book?
I am writing a book that is set in England, but because I would get the book published in America I don't know what terminology to use. My main character is in the equivalent of 7th grade but in ...
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How do we distinguish how a character pronounces a word and how it is spelled in a dialogue?
How do we distinguish how a character pronounces a word and how it is spelled in a dialogue? For example, some people pronounce words in a different way than they should, how do you show that in a ...
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How to deal with foreign language in dialogue?
I'm writing a story about a little girl who got bit by an unknown snake species and is being treated for it. Out of the 3 snakebite victims, this little girl seems to have the best prognosis. Here is ...
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How to show, not tell, a character has an accent in the narrative?
India has a diverse range of languages and accents. Moreover, people from different parts of the country have different accents of speaking the same language as well. For example, a person from ...
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A torrent of foreign terms
I am writing a short story, about a particular field with multiple specific terms, none of which are in English. (Specifically, I'm writing about bullfighting, but the question could apply to other ...
