You've seen it many times. "We will bury you," Soviet Premiere Nikita Krushchev was reported to have said.
He said no such thing. Whatever he said - and it is pretty widely disputed - he did not say it in English.
In a story, with a character talking in a foreign language, is it okay to put the translated-into-English material in quotation marks - so that English readers will understand it?
In a story, with a character talking in a foreign language, is it okay to put the translated-into-English material in quotation marks - so that English readers will understand it?
That is the convention most English-language news publications use (sometimes even omitting that the speaker was speaking French, Russian, etc).
Generally, if I want complete accuracy (and I often do), I include the quote in the original language and put the translation in parentheses after it.
Generally, if I want complete accuracy (and I often do), I include the quote in the original language and put the translation in parentheses after it.
That's advisable especially for word plays or puns in the original language, because they don't translate well.
The author should avoid puns in the English translation if they don't work in the original language.
HM.
Generally, you use parentheses in non-fiction, em-dashes in fiction (though for different uses). The literary convention is to put foreign words/phrases and speech in italics. The most graceful way of doing this (without dumping a translation into the story text) is to have one character state the phrase, and then have the other characters respond to it, in such a way that it's easy to figure out what was originally said. I've used that many times, so I'll have someone yell something in Arabic, and the lead character will respond with a clever remark in English. (If necessary, have a secondary character ask 'What the heck did they say?').
As for puns, just have someone else say 'It's funnier in the original language.'
The literary convention is to put foreign words/phrases and speech in italics.
True, but if it's dialogue it's in double quotes.
The literary convention is to put foreign words/phrases and speech in italics.
True, but if it's dialogue it's in double quotes.
That needs a little explanation, as "double quotes" here means either 'single quotes within double quotes or double quotes inside of single quotes (for the Brits among us). But that's for quoted dialogue, whether it's in English or not (ex: "Sammy says 'Get the lead out, A-hole!'").
That needs a little explanation, as "double quotes" here means
Double quote —> "
Single quote —> '
This is what I was referring to:
"¿Y quién es ese?" Manuel said with his eyes fixed on Steele.
is it okay to put the translated-into-English material in quotation marks - so that English readers will understand it?
Yes
I switched from italics to guillemets – "" – to signify foreign languages, because italics don't work with Japanese (and yes, I know that should be obvious, but I'm a consistency freak!
I use italics for movie, book, and song titles, and guillemets with translations in parenthesis following them EXCEPT in my series 'Good Medicine' where I use links to a lexicon because mostly it's single words not whole sentences.
I tend to pick what works for me and my readers and not worry too much about the 'rules'.
I tend to pick what works for me and my readers and not worry too much about the 'rules'.
While i understand that sentiment, and have NEVER been a fan of following the 'established' rules, picking and choosing which standards to follow based on the various Style Guides, I'm not quite ready to dump them entirely.
The key to standards, isn't that they're what the literary establishment demands, but that they're what readers are used to and can readily process. Even when we had that protracted discussion a few years back about Australians NOT recognizing dropped ending quotes on dialogue spanning several paragraphs, it turns out they'd been reading such books without even giving it a second thought all along.
Again, since these are 'guidelines' they've learned from years of reading, it doesn't take readers ANY processing to figure out WHAT you're trying to do, whereas if you do something simply because it's easy, it might trip the occasional reader up.
That said, there are plenty of guidelines I routinely ignore, the most obvious being the serial comma. Since my stories ALL take place in America, with purely American characters, and most of my readers are American, I feel it's fitting to stick to the American convention rather than the European one. Of course, there's always room for confusion, but I deal with those on a case by case basis, usually reordering the sentence rather than sticking to a strict adherence to a particular Style Guide.
By the way, WTF's the difference between guillemets and normal conversation double quotes (aside from British guides using single quotes for dialogue)? I use the traditional American double quotes for dialogue, using it again for foreign language usage would be virtually indistinguishable (unless it's a difference between double straight quote marks, rather than the 'curly' double quote marks).
I feel it's fitting to stick to the American convention rather than the European one.
The serial comma isn't an American/British difference. It's a style guide difference.
Chicago says to use it to avoid confusion.
AP says not to use it unless it's confusing not to. AP is used by newspapers, websites, etc. where space is critical.
Another example of that is:
Chicago = twelve-year-old.
AP = 12-year-old
It's all about saving space with AP.
By the way, WTF's the difference between guillemets and normal conversation double quotes (aside from British guides using single quotes for dialogue)? I use the traditional American double quotes for dialogue, using it again for foreign language usage would be virtually indistinguishable (unless it's a difference between double straight quote marks, rather than the 'curly' double quote marks).
In my case, it marks for the reader that something is in a foreign tongue.
In parts of continental Europe and in parts of Asia, they are used to set off quotations as with the ' or ".
By the way, WTF's the difference between guillemets and normal conversation double quotes (aside from British guides using single quotes for dialogue)?
The problem here is the SOL Forum system obviously transforms guillemets – aka angle, Latin or French quotes – into normal quotes. Michael Loucks wrote guillemets in his post, but we all saw only normal quotes!
Guillemet
HM.
The problem here is the SOL Forum system obviously transforms guillemets – aka angle, Latin or French quotes – into normal quotes. Michael Loucks wrote guillemets in his post, but we all saw only normal quotes!
Hell's bells! Didn't even realize that! Now I need to go check my posted stories, because THAT would be a major problem. Sigh.
ETA; They're in the stories, just not here. Whew.
ETA; They're in the stories, just not here. Whew.
That's odd. Last I checked, the Forum utilized the same conversion software that the submission process did (which is why they accept/reject the same html commands).
In might be in how you convert your written source into html (i.e. the software automatically tags it as separate html commands, rather than as 'special' characters.
The problem here is the SOL Forum system obviously transforms guillemets – aka angle, Latin or French quotes – into normal quotes.
Ahh, that answers my original question. I hadn't bothered to search the term, and wasn't sure how it distinguished them, but "angled quotes" (aka Latin or French quotes) I can picture immediately.
In might be in how you convert your written source into html (i.e. the software automatically tags it as separate html commands, rather than as 'special' characters.
I submit plain-text UTF-8 text files with standard underscore and asterisk tags, with the occasional curly brace tag. I do not submit HTML.
That's odd. Last I checked, the Forum utilized the same conversion software that the submission process did (which is why they accept/reject the same html commands).
The story posting process is different. Links are scrutinized by moderators.
But the forum software handles links and converts them to clickable links, which has different security requirements. Part of the security thing is to clean up quoting in order to avoid code injection into the forum posts.
But the forum software handles links and converts them to clickable links, which has different security requirements. Part of the security thing is to clean up quoting in order to avoid code injection into the forum posts.
I understand that, but not why it would handle a particular character one way in a post, and another way in the forum. However, I think Michael answered the question when he specified that he submits it as a plain text file, as you can't specify html character codes in a text file.
