Foreign characters pose a special set of problems for the writer. How do you portray a character’s speech accurately, without making them sound silly?
Foreign Phrases in Dialogue
Some writers will use a complete foreign sentence followed by a translation, but that seems cumbersome. Instead, try small words such as “Ach!” “ma chere,” “abuela,” etc. They can be interspersed in the dialogue and don’t need a translation – if the actual meaning is important, make it clear from the context. Remember to use them judiciously, not every line, or they will become trite and stereotypical.
Foreign Speech Patterns
Look for patterns in sentence structure, especially for characters from another country. Does the adjective go after the noun instead of before? Do they use the wrong tense or the wrong pronoun? A lack of contractions can also make a character sound foreign.
In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, one of the Chinese-born mothers says, “This American rules . . . Every time people come out from foreign country, must know rules. You not know, judge say, Too bad, go back. They not telling you why so you can use their way go forward They say, Don’t know why, you find out yourself.”
Any reader gets a perfect image of not only what the mother sounds like, but her attitude and experience as well.
Louise May Alcott used a little phonetically-spelled dialect with Professor Bhaer in Little Women, changing “have” to “haf,” etc., but she also used word choices and pronouns for his German-sounding English. When the Professor gives Jo a book of Shakespeare, he says: "You say often you wish a library. Here I gif you one, for between these lids (he meant covers) is many books in one. Read him well, and he will help you much..."
Notice that the English coming from German and Chinese born characters is very different. Writers who listen to real people, or who have a command of the specific foreign language, will do a better job of making foreigners sound real.
Historical Dialects
After reading the writings of a historical person or his contemporaries, it’s easy to assume that everyone spoke in flowery language. Not so! Written language and informal speech (as opposed to public speaking) differed greatly. Historical characters will have the same differences, the same good or poor grammar, the same regional dialects as modern characters. Use the same techniques to avoid phonetically spelled dialect.
In James Clavell’s Shogun, the ship’s captain, Blackthorne, speaks as an educated man. Clavell uses word choice and rhythm to differentiate between him and the lower-class English crewmen: “Pilot, it was terrible. No grub or liquor and those God-cursed paper houses’re like living in a field—a man can’t take a piss or pick his nose, nothing without someone watching, eh?”
The attitude and personality of the character come through, letting readers create an image of the crewman, without any phonetic spelling (although Clavell uses bits of it throughout the book).
Imported Dialects
Geographic “melting-pot” areas create additional dialogue concerns. A writer setting a historical story in central Indiana, for example, needs to know whether the character’s family came from the northern states and through Ohio, or from the south through Kentucky. One will have Yankee slang and idioms, while the other will have double negatives and southern idioms.
The final piece of writing advice? Listen, but not to pronunciation. Listen to rhythm and cadence. Listen to word choice. Listen to grammar. And then let those cadences and structures flow through your fingers into your characters.
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