This is such a specific pet peeve that I know is petty but
As a linguistics major who is also trilingual and has real life experience code-switching (changing from one language to another) mid-sentence on the daily, one of the BIGGEST bothers to me in fanfics is when it happens unnaturally.
I get that we all think ‘wow, a character suddenly speaking in another language is sexy ;)’ but the truth is, there are natural AND also really awkward and unnatural ways to codeswitch, and unless you have first-hand experience, there is a high risk that your sexy insertion of a foreign word in the middle of a sentence is actually making someone who speaks that language natively cringe just a little bit.
And – I want to make this clear – that’s not your fault! It’s a difficult thing to write well.
But I beg you, if you are using a REAL language in your fanfics (not a made-up conlang), please find a native speaker to check your work, don’t just pick random words and don’t just insert them into the slot where the English word would go.
Some people are wondering about how to go about doing it ‘the right way’ in the comments, so I will preface it first with:
There is no singular ‘right’ way to do this! Even people who speak the same language will speak differently. Dialects, personal verbal habits, etc, all exist! So naturally this can be stretched.
However, there are typically more ‘natural’ patterns of when people codeswitch – flip from one language to another.
✪ Mutual bilingualism ✪
Situation: Two or more people both share a second language, aside from the ‘lingua franca’
Most of the time, if you are both speaking, you will pick a language and stick to it. Not because it’s impossible – just because it’s easier. In most cases, it takes more braincells to switch between languages than it does to continue in the same language. (*Remember this later, this is important.)
However, a common thing that happens is that one person will speak one language, and another will use the second one.
If they both mutually understand one another, this is not an issue, and a comfortable way to converse. This happens often with bilingual kids who talk to their parents. They may speak in English to their parent, who will respond in another language.
For example, conversations between my mother and I frequently take this format:
Text: A conversation between two people. The one on the left side of the screen is speaking in Russian. The right side is answering in English.
However:
When code-switching does happen, it happens most often:
at a paragraph level (starting a new topic in a different language)
at the sentence level (starting a new sentence in a different language)
at the clause level (switching mid-sentence, but after a comma)
at a word level (BUT only in specific cases! More on this below.)
in that order of frequency.
For example, THIS type of codeswitching:
Text: (In English:) “There’s no snow, so we’re all good! I’m ready whenever you are” (New line, in Japanese:) “When you’re finished, I’ll be on the left side right outside that same exit.”
is proportionately more common than THIS:
Text: (In Japanese, except the bolded parts) “Does that sort of meme exist?” “Huh? Oh… no, wait. Why ‘Amazing Grace’?”
“But wait! What about words? Don’t people constantly insert words from foreign languages into their speech?”
Sure, they do. This happens all the time.
Under the right circumstances.
For example:
When you are trying to name a specific place or location which would not have an immediate translation
When you are a using a cultural word specific to a certain language (such as an artifact that only exists for one culture, or a specific holiday which doesn’t have an immediate translation into Common).
When you are swearing, and you have a strong preference for a swearword in one language
When you are specifically teaching someone a word, or explaining a word from one language
Example: If I want to tell my mom I’m playing DnD with friends, so I can’t call her right now, I will say ‘DnD’ in English, because there isn’t any other way to say it.
Text: “(In Russian) Can I call in 5 minutes?” “Can we do it tomorrow? I’m playing (in English) DnD (in Russian) right now.” “Gotcha.”
HOWEVER, of course weirder examples exist.
The prime ones are when you can’t remember a specific word in one language, and HAVE to dip into the reserves of the other. This happens to me constantly.
Text: In russian, this says “I dunno, it just seemed very….. sudden. lol” – the word ‘sudden’ is not the Russian word for ‘sudden’. It’s just the English word ‘sudden’ transliterated into cyrillic, because I blanked for a moment and forgot how to speak.
OR when a you just pepper in a specific word because the ones in English will not convey the message properly:
Text: “How’s [NAME REDACTED]?” Reply: “(In Japanese) Otsukaresama!” which translates loosely to ‘hey, you worked hard, you deserve a break, etc’ but doesn’t have a direct translation into English. “He’s good. Seems (in Japanese) genki.” Again, the ‘genki’ here is a specific mood that I associate with that word, and felt couldn’t be replaced with the English equivalent.
Of course, this is somewhat terrible in showing you SPEECH patterns, because texting and speech are quite different.
But the points you need to take away is:
Very few people will codeswitch in the middle of the sentence without a good reason to do so. If you have a character who is trying to confess their love, unfortunately it IS unrealistic to have them go
“And I…. must confess that… Я люблю тебя.”
It looks cool, but it’s not actually intuitive. Of course, anyone CAN do it. But it has to be a very conscious choice. No one would do that on accident. It’s not actually easier than simply staying in one language and continuing to finish “I love you.”
Similarly, most people DON’T drop in and out of languages several times in one sentence.
It’s just not useful, and it actually takes more brainpower to do so.
(To those of you yelling: But I do that! – I ask – but how OFTEN? Sure, I’ve also weirded up my language. Sometimes, my mom and I make Frankenstein sentences which are REALLY weird. But it’s not a constant thing. It’s usually a one-off.)
Sorry, these are a a real bitch to transcribe, but suffice it to say that this is an English-Russian soup.)
….
These are prime examples. They absolutely DO happen— (
….
wait for it…
…
….
WHEN BOTH SPEAKERS NATIVELY SPEAK THE SAME TWO LANGUAGES.
This brings me to a very important point:
If your character, who is bilingual, is speaking to another character, who would NOT understand them…………….. there’s a good chance they’re being a bit of an asshole.
Look, here’s the thing.
I live with my partner, who speaks Japanese and English fluently. I also speak Japanese at a conversational level, and English fluently.
I also speak Russian at a native level. He barely knows much of it at all.
The amount of times I insert random Russian phrases into my conversations with my partner?
Once a month. Tops.
(Once, I tried to teach him how to say ‘I love you’ – [
Я
тебя
люблю ] in Russian, and he mispronounced it as
[ Я тебя убью ]
‘I’ll kill you’ and it has been a meme in our household ever since. Shadowgast fans who write Essek speaking Russian, I give you this anecdote freely. Do with it what you will. It’s yours.)
It’s not actually conducive to conversations, and it’s not as natural as some fanfics might have you believe. And even in the throws of passion, it’s not really that easy. If you and your partner both know a common language, you won’t actually deviate from it unless you have a good reason. Such as, if you want to teach someone to say something in that language!
…..and their pronunciation will likely be silly! (Nothing wrong with that.)
I have a complicated answer to this:
The truth is, this greatly depends on the person.
So I know that as soon as I say my own opinion, I will have 50 people descend on me in rage, protesting the opposite.
BUT – personally, I think petnames in a foreign language have to do the following things:
they have to be short enough to be usable. Long-ass nicknames in a foreign language will be clunky in the middle of the sentence, even more so than native-language nicknames
they have to make sense for the age/relationship/culture of the characters.
Russian, for example, has thousands of petnames. But there are some that scream ‘I’m your grandmother!’ and some which have very romantic connotations. You have to actually ask native Russians if it works or not.
Also – keep in mind that OVERUSING a petname is a thing! If you’re constantly using that word, every other sentence, it might become tedious to go back and forth between the pronunciation of one language and then back into another. If I call my Japanese partner a petname which has a specific set of sounds unique to Russian, my brain has to do the legwork of switching gears back into Japanese or English pronunciation. That takes braincells! Which I do not have!
However, that’s a problem that’s more unique to languages which are completely dissimilar in grammar and phonology. I’ve heard that it’s easier between languages which are more closely related, such as German and English, or Spanish and English.
BUT for that I turn it over to you, fellow bye-linguals and try-linguals.
What do we think? Petnames in our native languages for our partners – yay or nay?
This entry was posted by jbc on Monday, March 14th, 2022 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Tumblr.
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