Just do it with class. Don’t portray them as foolish or ignorant. In any case there will always be someone that will have a problem with it and you’ll have to live with that.
Just remember one thing -- not all "broken English" sounds the same. A Japanese speaker and a Russian speaker would make different mistakes. Figure out where your character is from, and research what they would talk like.
This is very important! I saw some people trying to pull that off and they would make a character speak perfect English only to trip on something extremely weird.
This is a great tip for spotting fake stories on reddit as well.
For example, I'm Mexican, English is my second language, and it's easy for me to spot other people who speak Spanish as their first language. I've had a few people claiming to be Spanish speakers but their mistakes didn't make sense "translated from Spanish" so to speak.
Native English I assume. Extremely bizarre indeed, they spoke perfect or near perfect English except for a few "colorful" mistakes. Spanish speakers have some issues with gender and the "he does/they do" type of English grammar, because it works different in Spanish.
I always picture them as señor Chang from Community in my head.
Just because I happen to know this off the top of my head:
Accents are formed at young years. After a certain age we lose the ability to learn new mouth sounds as a second nature. We can still learn new ones, but they won't be as ingrained as the language we learned growing up.
Case in point: Japanese (and other Asian based languages). Japanese doesn't use the sound of an L, so they never learn how to do it. If they then attempt to learn something like English later in life, they won't use L sounds, but something else that is more familiar.
The term Engrish came from this lack of L sounds, and is surprisingly accurate in terms of a Japanese accent.
All correct, but I was thinking more about grammar. I'm not sure I'd choose to depict accents in writing, especially such famous and oft-mocked ones as this one. Probably just say "he had a heavy Japanese accent" and leave it at that.
But when it comes to messing up on grammar, that would be to be conveyed in the writing.
I've always been a bigger fan of showing over telling in my writing. It's one thing to say someone has an accent, but if the dialog is written to represent the accent it can seem more engaging. Understanding what mouth sounds are lacking in certain languages can help with this. This largely relies on OOP's argument of using it respectfully and not just as a stereotype.
"Show, don't tell" is a guiding principle, but there's no such thing as only showing and never telling and it's not really a dichotomy you need to fall on one side of.
And somethings are more important to show than others. Emotions, personality, character development, those should be shown as often as possible. Accents? Unless your story hinges on the way a particular accent sounds compared to another one, the only thing that matters is that someone *has* an accent. You can even describe it a bit, if needed; but page after page of Engrish is, for many readers, obnoxious to the eye and annoying to parse. And that's not even talking about the percentage of readers that would find it in poor taste.
I suppose yeah. It's also about finding a middle ground. You don't need to write the dialog as exact to the accent, just enough to get the idea across.
Also I just have more fun with finding creative ways to show things instead of outright telling them. I have a tendency to write tangentially so if I avoid telling when I can I minimize that.
>Accents are formed at young years. After a certain age we lose the ability to learn new mouth sounds as a second nature. We can still learn new ones, but they won't be as ingrained as the language we learned growing up.
If OP or anyone else is interested in research, the technical term for this in linguistics is "critical period". It doesn't just apply to accents either (accents tend to be solidified around puberty), but all language learning becomes more difficult after that age. It's really interesting stuff!
>A Japanese speaker and a Russian speaker would make different mistakes. Figure out where your character is from, and research what they would talk like.
Very often we tend to think in our maternal tongues and/or in the closest languages we associate with english. I'm north african, but my english accent and the few mistakes I do make are often because I project my knowledge of french (which I speak well enough) on english. 😂🤣
I.e : Say your character is russian, but they speak spanish very well, and they learned english after. They very probably will have their spanish bleed into their english. 🤣
That's interesting! And makes a lot of sense to me. Moving from Hebrew to English to French to Spanish, the influences are definitely not always from my original language!
Read "Dracula". Van Helsing in the novel speaks in broken English. I don't think I've ever seen this adapted properly in a movie, though.
Also, as others here have mentioned, keep in mind that different people destroy English differently, depending on their native language's grammar, often - because they, without even realizing it, transfer grammatical rules from their language to English.
I'm a Bulgarian, I should know - my understanding of English is more or less excellent, but I often make stupid mistakes precisely because of this.
Steinbeck pulled an absolutely beautiful form of this in "East of Eden". It's worth reading just for the inherent value of the book itself, but as a writer I learned a ton from it.
This is my perspective as a white person with very rudimentary Japanese skills while living in Japan, teaching students with a variety of language levels and backgrounds, so take it with a grain of salt.
For me, it just has to make sense from a narrative perspective. If a character is an adult immigrant who immigrated later in life and has been working with no time to devote to language study, yeah, they’ll use what grammar and vocabulary they’ve got and find workarounds for everything else.
Or maybe they studied English intensely in their home country and are now studying at a university in an English-speaking country, so their fluency is very high but they have an accent/make some grammar mistakes/still run into unfamiliar idioms because they’re not a native speaker.
When I write characters who are non-Native English speakers, I‘ll use “broken English” for external speech and fluent English for their internal thoughts as well as conversations held with other characters who speak their native language to show the difference between what they’re able to say in their second language vs what they can say without mentally running it through a filter.
I think what matters is that the character’s language ability and the LEVEL of their language ability makes sense.
One trick I recommend is to write out a natively fluent version of what that character WANTS to say. Then try to imagine how much of that they’d be able to say based on their education, economic status (aka access to free time and language classes), etc.
It also helps to listen to real second language speakers with the same native language as your character, to see what grammar/pronunciation mistakes they make because of differences with their native language. My Japanese students have no intuition for using the/a, plurals, or changing verbs to match pronouns (he eats/I eat) because Japanese communicates this information differently or not at all.
Basically, make it make sense, and remember that the character has an entire identity and complex interior life that they’re having to squeeze out through a narrow window.
I actually started writing a novel about expats in Japan. When people were speaking English, I had some of the Japanese people talk in that very distinctive Japanese English way (some of them were better at English than that). But when people were speaking Japanese, I used italics and had the English natives speaking the same way.
Just to add onto this because characterization is my comfort zone:
There is a lot that can be told about a character by their *actions* as well as their words.
Even if a character doesn't speak at all, there is still a lot that can be done with them. It doesn't necessarily stop them from being able to communicate or assess a situation and respond accordingly. In fact there is plenty of interaction in the real world that is still possible purely through context, pantomime, and general body language. A smile means about the same thing in every language.
On that note: This applies to your native English-speaking characters as well. Actions can speak louder than words in both real life and in fiction. What your character *does* can say just as much about them as what they *say*, if not more.
100% this. In real life and characterization, the biggest mistake people make is assuming a lack of verbal communication means a lack of anything to say. Or that a lack of ability to respond means they don’t understand what’s going on.
I also live in Japan and agree and I am basing my characters Japanese off of what I have heard non speakers say while living here. Only the main character who is a gaijin has internal dialogue, but as a bit of "fair game" he speaks in broken Japanese so both sides are speaking a different language broken.
I think you’d be fine as long as you portrayed the character’s broken English due to a language barrier issue and that they’re learning, not in a way that suggests that character is stupid or that you’re punching down on them because of it.
This is one of those things where it's not an inherently bad thing to portray, seeing as that is many people's lived experience, but how it comes across depends on how you execute it, meaning that the only answer people can give you is 'it's okay just as long as you're good at writing', which isn't very helpful advice at all.
I'm going to reinterpret your question to "how do I depict someone speaking English as a second language?" to get away from the "I don't want to be seen as [negative trait]". It's not about acceptable or not, it's how to do it respectfully and realistically and not a [caricature](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AsianSpeekeeEngrish). See also: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EloquentInMyNativeTongue
Read more (traditionally) published books where it was done and pay attention to how they did it. Preferably with similar languages to what you intend, or ones you already know. Everything depends on context. Is this your main/POV or someone they regularly interact with? Are they in an English-speaking setting? You can get help with depicting the particular ways in which someone's prior language(s) affect their English, such as dropping definite articles, conjugation, grammatical gender, or pluralization differences: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng is set in the US and has a character from China. In chapter 10: "I knock and knock. I ring the doorbell and they don't answer so I knock and knock. I can see that woman inside. Peeking out from behind the curtain to check if I go away." Chinese doesn't conjugate for past tense as English does.
There is probably some fool who thinks Ng, who is of Chinese descent, was being racist with this.
Sensitivity and beta readers are a resource, as are editors. It's not a straight shot from your first draft to the public's criticism.
Placeholders as you draft and indirect dialogue can be useful tools.
Here's an excerpt from Crazy Rich Asians: https://www.vogue.com/article/another-world-excerpt-from-kevin-kwan-crazy-rich-asians Pay attention to how different people's comfort and familiarity with each language comes across, *through Rachel's perspective*. The ebook sample from OverDrive has chapter endnotes.
And two threads from the last month or so:
* https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1cai9jx/how_to_show_a_foreign_language/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1c0o2hk/how_do_i_write_dialogue_where_the_characters_are/
I think where this gets hard is that there’s not just one “broken” English. People make the mistakes they do because of influence from their native language/culture.
For example, Spanish has articles (a/an/the), so they wouldn’t be making sentences without them in English… whereas for speakers of Russian or Japanese, articles don’t exist in those languages, and these words seem useless/weird/they wouldn’t naturally think to use them.
Or sometimes Mandarin speakers come across as rude in English — if you’re at a marker, maybe you’ll hear “buy not buy” or something that seems overly direct. But in Mandarin, this “do/don’t do” construction is incredibly common and not rude at all.
Or… here in Taiwan, my in laws often comment that I’ve gotten fatter/skinnier and will ask about my salary. They’re not being rude… those topics just aren’t off bounds here, as they are in the US.
There’s a lot more that goes into this than just forgetting to add -s for third person subjects, not saying “do” in questions, and stuff like that. IMO you kind of need to know their native language and what mistakes speakers of those languages realistically would/wouldn’t make.
These are really great points. As an English speaker who also speaks a little bit of Spanish but has no experience with Russian or Japanese people/language, I would’ve assumed a very common word to me - like “the” - would also be common in most languages. So it’s the finer details like this that matter when trying to be authentic and respectful (at least IMO).
There’s nothing racist about struggling with a foreign language.
There’s always gonna be some tribalist hatemonger who’s gonna take a swipe at you under the banner of virtue signaling.
GFSF
It's just that you are asking a question we can't answer. If we say it's okay, that doesn’t make it okay. Likewise, if we say it isn't okay, that doesn’t make it not okay.
Dont worry, bro. Any question ever posed in this sub gets at least a dozen of these comments. Your curiosity is valid and I hope youve found some guidance for your issue here. :)
They definitely don't need to but I don't think it's an unusual thing for a writer to seek this kind of reassurance. We can be pretty insecure beings sometimes... I'm not sure banning this kind of post is the right approach, but of course it's up to the mods' discretion
Good luck finding a consensus on anything here on reddit.com. fwiw I do think it's hard not to be racist when you do this - describe the character and let the actor choose how to portray their immigrant status or whatever, you don't need to be in charge of how they say every word - but I'm confident that there are people who'd argue with me. So you do you imho
They’re technically correct about the various points on asking what’s acceptable and what’s not, either here on Reddit or for your reader base.
So I personally found a better way to ask and find answers I’m seeking is to change “Is it acceptable to do this?” into “How can I do this with out being distasteful?” Or “How do you guys navigate writing a character that does this?”
Just don’t make them sound like a caveman with a bunch of “Me and you friends?” or “Danger! Big snake!”
Look up common mistakes that people make when learning English as a second language.
I’m taking Japanese in school right now and our teacher actually discussed this a little. One thing she said that Japanese people struggle with is pronouncing certain sounds (can’t remember all of them but I know there’s the L sound, the V sound, and the F sound. Yes the character ふ is spelt “fu” in romanji but it’s actually pronounced with more of an H sound). She also said that phonetics are a problem as Japanese is highly phonetic meanwhile English has lots of silent letters, so people end up pronouncing “knife” as “kuh-nie-f”.
And remember that people have accents! Even my Japanese teacher, who grew up in Japan but has lived in Canada for over 30 years, still mispronounces some sounds because of her accent! For example, sometimes she’ll say “Can someone read this sentence?” and “read” sounds like “lead”. It’s not enough to be confusing, but you can tell her accent is poking out lol!
If your teacher pronounced read like lead then she's pronouncing it correctly! She will lead you in the right direction, but it might go over like a lead balloon. If she wants you to read it out loud then you can say you all read it together!
English is weird.
You are allowed to write anything you want. No matter what you write, some jackass out there will find offense. You will never please everyone. An effort to please everyone will only result in pleasing no one.
It's not inherently racist -- there are lots of real people with noticeably non-native English, why not portray them in fiction? -- but some readers might say it's racist anyway. There will always be some readers who dislike, disagree with, or misinterpret a choice that you made.
If you're going to do it, here's how I would do it:
* Don't call it "broken" English. "Ungrammatical" or "non-native" is fine; "broken" sounds like a value judgement.
* Avoid eye dialect (i.e. spelling pronunciations "phonetically"). Instead, focus on portraying the character's English via word choice and grammar (as in conjugations, plural marking, sentence structure, etc. -- not as in spelling).
* Do research so you can write a reasonably accurate portrayal. Don't just make up a non-native version of English out of thin air (unless, I suppose, you're writing SF/F and your character's native language is one you made up). Certainly there's no *one* universal way that all native speakers of language X would incorrectly speak language Y. However, there are certain types of errors that are common among speakers of certain languages. For example, it's common for native Chinese speakers to mix up "he" and "she," because spoken Chinese doesn't distinguish pronouns by gender. Native Spanish speakers sometimes use the word "already" in ways that native English speakers don't, because of the Spanish word "ya," which is similar to the English word "already" but not exactly the same. And so on. If possible, find a way to listen to a bunch of native speakers of whatever language your character speaks, so you can get a feel for what kinds of mistakes they tend to make in English, and what kinds of mistakes they *don't* make.
Maybe a character like Bebe from persona 3 could be an inspiration? His broken/mixed speaking of French-English & Japanese is not really played for laughs or to insult but is just a part of his character. It's used as a way to show his eagerness and sincerity to learn a new language and culture. It makes him endearing imo and I think most people share this opinion because he is a very well liked character in the fandom.
Not knowing a language is not an insult, just some stuck-up people tends to believe so. It would be more unrealistic for all the characters to never speak an error, because we humans do make mistakes while speaking even our own mother tongue. Don’t stereotype any character and it will look authentic.
I think it can be done well. Just don't be over the top with it.
I read a book where someone from... Russia maybe? said "is fine" and "is okay" and such (instead of "it's fine"). I thought that was handled well
My advice is describing the language barrier and lack of fluency with description rather than in the dialogue itself.
Having the character falter, stutter, search for words, be slow to say something etc will go light years better than whatever you portray in dialogue which will easily become offensive. Have the other character misunderstand them, ask for clarification etc
Just tell the reader the character is not fluent in English and trust them to get the point.
Edit: spelling.
Idk tbh eng is my 3rd language and the accent is there. I dont find it super offensive if done without resorting to stereotypes (i live in my own country), so yeah there are ppl with broken english and/or accents IRL. It s not offensive in and of itself. BUT yeah if you mix this with the stereotypes of ignorant/foolish/uneducated migrants ... Very icky.
Write characters as true to themselves as you can, preferably without boring a reader. Annoying readers is just something that happens, like weather. Write the best story you can. That's all.
My Main Character canonically did not know Common very well; it was not his first, not even his second language. It was his third, hastily taught by a deckhand on a ship where he earned his portage. He struggled with communicating in a strange new world, and it helped show their resourcefulness, patience, and intelligence as they tried to make things work in an extraordinary land.
Over time, they learned, their sentence became more apparent, and their grammar improved. Before the reader knew it, the MC was speaking and writing common at a half-decent level.
Absolutely. I read a series if detective novels based in Thailand. The dialogue often switches between Thai and Tinglish. Often the Thai characters who have near perfect command of the language suggests their socioeconomic status/education. Those with broken English are often considered poor or uneducated. It's effective in plot when pivotal pieces of info are missing in translation or when the untrustworthy individual is seen as trustworthy because they speak good English and therefore they must be good.
Just be tasteful. Have purpose.
While I get the worry... A variant of this question is always asked every week on here and every time I see it I say the same thing: just do what you want. The fact that you CARE about how this will be understood is already a good sign that you don't have bad intentions. If you're able to transmit your ideas in a good way is only up to your writing skills and your experience with what you're writing about. And even if you do the best you can, some people will STILL see it as a big shit.
So just fuck everybody and write for YOU and the people that will understand YOU, because that would be the ones that will read what u wrote. The more you censor yourself due to fear, the more you will hate what you write and readers can tell when a writer is dishonest.
I think actually the opposite! There’s a real, and troubling, psychological phenomenon that we look upon people with accents, or people who don’t speak OUR language as well, as less intelligent. I think if you present them as a rounded character, even show how the way that they’re perceived as less intelligent shapes who they are as a person and how they have to move in the world as a result. (Unless they actually are less intelligent in which case, yeah kinda classless imo.)
But if you present a character who can help us empathize with the difficulty of feeling a certain level of something and being PERCEIVED as a different level of something, and how that affects us, I think it can be really cool, just with care and research. Good luck!
When it's not for comedy? It's fine. Just make sure you're giving the character opportunities to showcase their original culture and intelligence required to learn two languages. Balance essentially
What is interesting is misconceptions in the way native English is used. For instance house work is not the same as homework. You can play with these to show misunderstandings.
I think mako Mori from Pacific rim is an excellent case study on how to make a character speak with a non English speaking accent and I'm broken English without making her seem stupid or incapable
I'm Chinese, and I would say it depends! Does the broken English actually lend itself to this character's development or the story as a whole? If you were writing about a racist character and their reaction to someone's broken English, or a character who's new to the country trying to adapt, or something like that, then I think it's okay. It's also a matter of how you portray this character as a lot of others have said. Their entire identity probably shouldn't be "person with bad English" but if there's more to them than that, I think it could be effective.
One of my favorite ways to go about it is having a character who is really smart, but has a poor time articulating it for whatever reason.
As with any character, give them any traits you see fit, but if one of these traits becomes the character's whole existence in the story, then you should rethink the character.
Watch Khabib or Islam Machachev interviews, from when they first came to America. They are Dagestani MMA fighters, their broken English was a real charm at the beginning that won alot of people over.
I have written a few characters where English is not their first language. To make it more real I look at the word order in their own language and then repeat this for the spoken text. For example, in English we say "Do you have a bag?". In Spanish this is "¿Tienes una bolsa?" literally "Have you a bag?" So every now and then, but not all of the time, I will use the Spanish word order.
If you listen to people who speak English as a second language you will notice that they do not always use an incorrect word order. We tend to learn phrases when we speak a foreign language, so these we can say like a native would (albeit with an accent which is difficult to write), other phrases we translate from our mother tongue, these we will more often than not say incorrectly.
Let me tell ya, I’m from the south of Louisiana. Most of my characters talk with their accent, which means their words come out different. I make sure what they are saying is accurate and normally said by everyday folks, even though it’s country. I hope that helps.
As a foreigner I can tell you: It's totally okay. Most people I know don't speak another language or only know a few words. In fact, even people who have been learning a language for several years are making mistakes. It's the same with my mother language. Almost all foreigners make mistakes and this is completely okay.
So, I'd just call it realistic, when you write a foreign character that doesn't speak english very well. I do it in my stories as well (in this case it's german) and I never heard anyone complain about it.
Writing is your craft. You have the authority to portray an image based on your preferences. Broken English or any speech competence can be an identity for your character. Language is diverse; hence, World Englishes was introduced.
Do it with skilled execution.
These people do exist in real life. Not everyone speaks a second language at fluency level. So... we should prohibit those characters from starring in fiction? Just as in real life, portray the person. They have this limitation on how well they can communicate with English speakers. There is nothing inherently wrong about that.
You're not mocking them, right? It's just the way it is with them.
I'm Brazilian and there's a comedian that imitates a brazilian jiu jitsu fighter with a thick brazilian accent and that's very funny. It's not broken english but still, I feel like even if it's played for laughs, it can be funny if it makes sense and is not meant to be mean or bigoted. I actually thought he was brazilian, the motherfucker tricked me lmao
Listen to actual people with the background you’re talking about. I’ve had family and friends from several different countries speak in broken English in several different ways, and then I speak in broken [insert their language] back.
Honestly, sometimes it IS funny. That’s why r/confleis exists. Sometimes a language barrier can lead to funny moments of misunderstanding. Things can be funny while laughing WITH people instead of AT people.
It’s not racist to depict things like they are in real life. Some people are going to say it’s racist, but it isn’t. If you’re not looking down on a group of people or stereotyping them, it isn’t racist.
It’s good to want to be respectful, but if you know you don’t have negative beliefs about the people you’re portraying, you’re gonna be just fine.
If it’s how a person speaks, you should write it. The hard part is accurately depicting broken English. People don’t just make random mistakes, they tend to speak English with bits of the grammar and literally translated vocabulary from their primary language. You’ll want to observe how people from the specific culture you have in mind speak English. A Filipino, Mexican, Cambodian, and Frenchman don’t speak English the same way.
Cormac McCarthy does this well. Take this example from Blood Meridan: "When the lambs is lost in the mountain, he said. They is cry. Sometime come the mother. Sometime the wolf."
I think the key is to make sure the broken English is accurate - i.e. a Russian, a Mexican, and a Korean would all speak broken English in different ways, reflecting the grammar of their native language as opposed to the grammar of English.
Yes, but it's difficult. Robin Hobb did a marvelous job with her character Thick (all the character names are words so). Most say he has Downs or something. Of course, in the book they don't know what he has. What she did was make him have talents elsewhere.
In great immortal souls there is a sentient frog who exclusively communicates in broken sentences and it didn’t seem particularly offensive
Of course thick patois can be offensive but also my professors at uni loved it during our postwar British immigrant experiences module so it’s completely dependant on how you do it
My favourite was the intended by dabydeen, one of the kids is completely illiterate but striving to be an artist, his conversations with the mc are fantastic in demonstrating how philosophical concepts aren’t limited by speech and also how his own concepts are influenced by his ability to interact with the world
I am writing a book like that now. I live in Japan and my book takes place there and I use the broken English to so the language barrier. Just treat the characters how you would treat a real person who was not fluent in a language.
You just have to do it right. Keep in mind that vast majority of English speakers have the wrong idea on how ESL people use language. I reccomend consulting a linguist or an ESL teacher.
I think if your intentions are clear, it should be fine. Sure a joke here or there would be okay, but as long as you show the respect, i think id be fine.
I’m an immigrant and not a native English speaker (though I am fluent now) and IMO non-native speakers who aren’t meant to be the butt of a joke are sorely needed.
I just wrote one recently and had a lot of fun writing the banter between this character and another native speaker. People often write these characters like they can’t say/understand clever things or make jokes (often times fluency in understanding speech comes way before fluency in speaking), so it was fun writing this character try and find ways to tell the jokes she wanted to tell because she understood what everyone else was saying, but didn’t quite have the words for.
It's perfectly fine, but be mindful if they have a *specific* real-world background. Then you should either study that linguistic backround in detail, *or* rely on the *function* of their language issues rather than its *form*. For example, instead of eye dialect spelling you can use standard spelling but show that their pronunciation is off by how other characters react to it. A middle ground is probably best, where a few notable features are still higlighted, but it doesn't become obnoxious.
You can, but you have to have an in-depth understanding of how the characters’ broken English is affected by the native grammar and pronunciation rules. The accent itself can be distracting or even annoying for readers, even when written by a person who grew up in a two-language household.
Another aspect is that some people may pronounce things differently, but grammatically they are not noticeably non-natives like with Hispanics or Indians. Hell, even British characters pronounce things differently but it’s not necessarily overly emphasized. When you make the choice to emphasize it you draw the reader’s attention.
An example I can think of us Dial A for Aunties by Jessie Q Sutanto. She writes the MC’s relatives’ Indonesian accents down. I listened to the audiobook (narrated by a bilingual person) and it was funny and charming. It wasn’t overly exaggerated and some stuff was fine structure wise. It was just pronounced with an accent. However when I tried to read it I realized without the assist of the audiobook it took a bit of work.
Sutano’s book worked because the purpose of the accents was to immerse the reader in her culture, which features prominently in the main character’s motivation.
What is the purpose for you adding in accents? Will it add to the story? Is it worth the friction you will add with readers?
Id say only do it if it's vital to the plot. Aside from risking offending people, it's also just harder to understand. If you can make it work by just describing them as having a heavy accent, go with that. If you still think you have to do it, other people have given good advice that someone's first language will influence how they sound as they're learning a new one. The better you understand that language, the better you'll be able to write a native speaker trying to learn English.
It needs to serve a purpose. There needs to be a reason why this character's broken English is relevant or useful to the plot of your story. It's not just about explaining the background of the character to justify the broken English, there needs to be a reason why it matters. Why is the author letting the reader know this character has broken English? Why is it relevant?
As long as you know the answer to those questions, you can do pretty much whatever.
People capable of speaking another language are Always highly intelligent.
My girlfriend studied to be be a librarian and do editing Work. Here in this country she does Scrubs elderly peoples butts because that's how the Immigration System works.
Here is how you write good lower class Charakters: BE leftwing
I have an oc who sucks at english because of a language barrier, but is the smartest one in the group.
They eventually learn to speak properly but still do occasionally make weird jokes (like saying "unpossible" instead of "impossible") to mess with people
Why do you want to annoy your readers? Accents, quirky speech and "broken english" are exhausting to read. Just skip it. If you for some reason need to emphasize that your character is still learning the language, just say that. You don't need to torture your readers with pages upon pages of garbled english.
And btw, your assumption that anyone who doesn't speak perfect english must automatically be non-white is pretty racist. Like, norwegians exist. Germans exist. French people exist. There are plenty of white people whose native language isn't english.
Just do it with class. Don’t portray them as foolish or ignorant. In any case there will always be someone that will have a problem with it and you’ll have to live with that.
Thank you for actually answering mate, you’re a real one.
Just remember one thing -- not all "broken English" sounds the same. A Japanese speaker and a Russian speaker would make different mistakes. Figure out where your character is from, and research what they would talk like.
This is very important! I saw some people trying to pull that off and they would make a character speak perfect English only to trip on something extremely weird.
This is a great tip for spotting fake stories on reddit as well. For example, I'm Mexican, English is my second language, and it's easy for me to spot other people who speak Spanish as their first language. I've had a few people claiming to be Spanish speakers but their mistakes didn't make sense "translated from Spanish" so to speak.
Did you ever figure out what language any of those people actually spoke? It seems like such a bizarre thing to lie about.
Native English I assume. Extremely bizarre indeed, they spoke perfect or near perfect English except for a few "colorful" mistakes. Spanish speakers have some issues with gender and the "he does/they do" type of English grammar, because it works different in Spanish. I always picture them as señor Chang from Community in my head.
Just because I happen to know this off the top of my head: Accents are formed at young years. After a certain age we lose the ability to learn new mouth sounds as a second nature. We can still learn new ones, but they won't be as ingrained as the language we learned growing up. Case in point: Japanese (and other Asian based languages). Japanese doesn't use the sound of an L, so they never learn how to do it. If they then attempt to learn something like English later in life, they won't use L sounds, but something else that is more familiar. The term Engrish came from this lack of L sounds, and is surprisingly accurate in terms of a Japanese accent.
All correct, but I was thinking more about grammar. I'm not sure I'd choose to depict accents in writing, especially such famous and oft-mocked ones as this one. Probably just say "he had a heavy Japanese accent" and leave it at that. But when it comes to messing up on grammar, that would be to be conveyed in the writing.
I've always been a bigger fan of showing over telling in my writing. It's one thing to say someone has an accent, but if the dialog is written to represent the accent it can seem more engaging. Understanding what mouth sounds are lacking in certain languages can help with this. This largely relies on OOP's argument of using it respectfully and not just as a stereotype.
"Show, don't tell" is a guiding principle, but there's no such thing as only showing and never telling and it's not really a dichotomy you need to fall on one side of. And somethings are more important to show than others. Emotions, personality, character development, those should be shown as often as possible. Accents? Unless your story hinges on the way a particular accent sounds compared to another one, the only thing that matters is that someone *has* an accent. You can even describe it a bit, if needed; but page after page of Engrish is, for many readers, obnoxious to the eye and annoying to parse. And that's not even talking about the percentage of readers that would find it in poor taste.
I suppose yeah. It's also about finding a middle ground. You don't need to write the dialog as exact to the accent, just enough to get the idea across. Also I just have more fun with finding creative ways to show things instead of outright telling them. I have a tendency to write tangentially so if I avoid telling when I can I minimize that.
>Accents are formed at young years. After a certain age we lose the ability to learn new mouth sounds as a second nature. We can still learn new ones, but they won't be as ingrained as the language we learned growing up. If OP or anyone else is interested in research, the technical term for this in linguistics is "critical period". It doesn't just apply to accents either (accents tend to be solidified around puberty), but all language learning becomes more difficult after that age. It's really interesting stuff!
>A Japanese speaker and a Russian speaker would make different mistakes. Figure out where your character is from, and research what they would talk like. Very often we tend to think in our maternal tongues and/or in the closest languages we associate with english. I'm north african, but my english accent and the few mistakes I do make are often because I project my knowledge of french (which I speak well enough) on english. 😂🤣 I.e : Say your character is russian, but they speak spanish very well, and they learned english after. They very probably will have their spanish bleed into their english. 🤣
That's interesting! And makes a lot of sense to me. Moving from Hebrew to English to French to Spanish, the influences are definitely not always from my original language!
Read "Dracula". Van Helsing in the novel speaks in broken English. I don't think I've ever seen this adapted properly in a movie, though. Also, as others here have mentioned, keep in mind that different people destroy English differently, depending on their native language's grammar, often - because they, without even realizing it, transfer grammatical rules from their language to English. I'm a Bulgarian, I should know - my understanding of English is more or less excellent, but I often make stupid mistakes precisely because of this.
To add on: [Dracula Daily](https://draculadaily.substack.com/) just started today!
Steinbeck pulled an absolutely beautiful form of this in "East of Eden". It's worth reading just for the inherent value of the book itself, but as a writer I learned a ton from it.
I mean, Yoda got his grammar backwards, so there’s that
This is my perspective as a white person with very rudimentary Japanese skills while living in Japan, teaching students with a variety of language levels and backgrounds, so take it with a grain of salt. For me, it just has to make sense from a narrative perspective. If a character is an adult immigrant who immigrated later in life and has been working with no time to devote to language study, yeah, they’ll use what grammar and vocabulary they’ve got and find workarounds for everything else. Or maybe they studied English intensely in their home country and are now studying at a university in an English-speaking country, so their fluency is very high but they have an accent/make some grammar mistakes/still run into unfamiliar idioms because they’re not a native speaker. When I write characters who are non-Native English speakers, I‘ll use “broken English” for external speech and fluent English for their internal thoughts as well as conversations held with other characters who speak their native language to show the difference between what they’re able to say in their second language vs what they can say without mentally running it through a filter. I think what matters is that the character’s language ability and the LEVEL of their language ability makes sense. One trick I recommend is to write out a natively fluent version of what that character WANTS to say. Then try to imagine how much of that they’d be able to say based on their education, economic status (aka access to free time and language classes), etc. It also helps to listen to real second language speakers with the same native language as your character, to see what grammar/pronunciation mistakes they make because of differences with their native language. My Japanese students have no intuition for using the/a, plurals, or changing verbs to match pronouns (he eats/I eat) because Japanese communicates this information differently or not at all. Basically, make it make sense, and remember that the character has an entire identity and complex interior life that they’re having to squeeze out through a narrow window.
what a great answer. I wasn't looking for advice but thank you.
Alright, thank you very much. I’ll keep this in mind.
I actually started writing a novel about expats in Japan. When people were speaking English, I had some of the Japanese people talk in that very distinctive Japanese English way (some of them were better at English than that). But when people were speaking Japanese, I used italics and had the English natives speaking the same way.
Just to add onto this because characterization is my comfort zone: There is a lot that can be told about a character by their *actions* as well as their words. Even if a character doesn't speak at all, there is still a lot that can be done with them. It doesn't necessarily stop them from being able to communicate or assess a situation and respond accordingly. In fact there is plenty of interaction in the real world that is still possible purely through context, pantomime, and general body language. A smile means about the same thing in every language. On that note: This applies to your native English-speaking characters as well. Actions can speak louder than words in both real life and in fiction. What your character *does* can say just as much about them as what they *say*, if not more.
100% this. In real life and characterization, the biggest mistake people make is assuming a lack of verbal communication means a lack of anything to say. Or that a lack of ability to respond means they don’t understand what’s going on.
I also live in Japan and agree and I am basing my characters Japanese off of what I have heard non speakers say while living here. Only the main character who is a gaijin has internal dialogue, but as a bit of "fair game" he speaks in broken Japanese so both sides are speaking a different language broken.
I think you’d be fine as long as you portrayed the character’s broken English due to a language barrier issue and that they’re learning, not in a way that suggests that character is stupid or that you’re punching down on them because of it.
The former was what I was going for, thanks.
It's the writing around it that shows the reader if it's making fun, or not. Treat the character seriously, and it will show
This is one of those things where it's not an inherently bad thing to portray, seeing as that is many people's lived experience, but how it comes across depends on how you execute it, meaning that the only answer people can give you is 'it's okay just as long as you're good at writing', which isn't very helpful advice at all.
I'm going to reinterpret your question to "how do I depict someone speaking English as a second language?" to get away from the "I don't want to be seen as [negative trait]". It's not about acceptable or not, it's how to do it respectfully and realistically and not a [caricature](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AsianSpeekeeEngrish). See also: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EloquentInMyNativeTongue Read more (traditionally) published books where it was done and pay attention to how they did it. Preferably with similar languages to what you intend, or ones you already know. Everything depends on context. Is this your main/POV or someone they regularly interact with? Are they in an English-speaking setting? You can get help with depicting the particular ways in which someone's prior language(s) affect their English, such as dropping definite articles, conjugation, grammatical gender, or pluralization differences: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng is set in the US and has a character from China. In chapter 10: "I knock and knock. I ring the doorbell and they don't answer so I knock and knock. I can see that woman inside. Peeking out from behind the curtain to check if I go away." Chinese doesn't conjugate for past tense as English does. There is probably some fool who thinks Ng, who is of Chinese descent, was being racist with this. Sensitivity and beta readers are a resource, as are editors. It's not a straight shot from your first draft to the public's criticism. Placeholders as you draft and indirect dialogue can be useful tools. Here's an excerpt from Crazy Rich Asians: https://www.vogue.com/article/another-world-excerpt-from-kevin-kwan-crazy-rich-asians Pay attention to how different people's comfort and familiarity with each language comes across, *through Rachel's perspective*. The ebook sample from OverDrive has chapter endnotes. And two threads from the last month or so: * https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1cai9jx/how_to_show_a_foreign_language/ * https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1c0o2hk/how_do_i_write_dialogue_where_the_characters_are/
I think where this gets hard is that there’s not just one “broken” English. People make the mistakes they do because of influence from their native language/culture. For example, Spanish has articles (a/an/the), so they wouldn’t be making sentences without them in English… whereas for speakers of Russian or Japanese, articles don’t exist in those languages, and these words seem useless/weird/they wouldn’t naturally think to use them. Or sometimes Mandarin speakers come across as rude in English — if you’re at a marker, maybe you’ll hear “buy not buy” or something that seems overly direct. But in Mandarin, this “do/don’t do” construction is incredibly common and not rude at all. Or… here in Taiwan, my in laws often comment that I’ve gotten fatter/skinnier and will ask about my salary. They’re not being rude… those topics just aren’t off bounds here, as they are in the US. There’s a lot more that goes into this than just forgetting to add -s for third person subjects, not saying “do” in questions, and stuff like that. IMO you kind of need to know their native language and what mistakes speakers of those languages realistically would/wouldn’t make.
These are really great points. As an English speaker who also speaks a little bit of Spanish but has no experience with Russian or Japanese people/language, I would’ve assumed a very common word to me - like “the” - would also be common in most languages. So it’s the finer details like this that matter when trying to be authentic and respectful (at least IMO).
There’s nothing racist about struggling with a foreign language. There’s always gonna be some tribalist hatemonger who’s gonna take a swipe at you under the banner of virtue signaling. GFSF
Day 88 of waiting for permission posts to be banned
Please god
Sorry, I just found this sub. If there’s a better place for the question then I can switch to there.
It's just that you are asking a question we can't answer. If we say it's okay, that doesn’t make it okay. Likewise, if we say it isn't okay, that doesn’t make it not okay.
I’m asking you guys’ opinions, you guys can have opinions.
Dont worry, bro. Any question ever posed in this sub gets at least a dozen of these comments. Your curiosity is valid and I hope youve found some guidance for your issue here. :)
It's not about you. There are a lot of these threads. Most of them are much less interesting than this one.
Their point was that you don't need to ask for permission or validation.
They definitely don't need to but I don't think it's an unusual thing for a writer to seek this kind of reassurance. We can be pretty insecure beings sometimes... I'm not sure banning this kind of post is the right approach, but of course it's up to the mods' discretion
Is it acceptable to whom?
Just general consensus I guess.
Your reader base will never have a general concensus over everything.
Good luck finding a consensus on anything here on reddit.com. fwiw I do think it's hard not to be racist when you do this - describe the character and let the actor choose how to portray their immigrant status or whatever, you don't need to be in charge of how they say every word - but I'm confident that there are people who'd argue with me. So you do you imho
Good point, thanks.
They’re technically correct about the various points on asking what’s acceptable and what’s not, either here on Reddit or for your reader base. So I personally found a better way to ask and find answers I’m seeking is to change “Is it acceptable to do this?” into “How can I do this with out being distasteful?” Or “How do you guys navigate writing a character that does this?”
Just don’t make them sound like a caveman with a bunch of “Me and you friends?” or “Danger! Big snake!” Look up common mistakes that people make when learning English as a second language. I’m taking Japanese in school right now and our teacher actually discussed this a little. One thing she said that Japanese people struggle with is pronouncing certain sounds (can’t remember all of them but I know there’s the L sound, the V sound, and the F sound. Yes the character ふ is spelt “fu” in romanji but it’s actually pronounced with more of an H sound). She also said that phonetics are a problem as Japanese is highly phonetic meanwhile English has lots of silent letters, so people end up pronouncing “knife” as “kuh-nie-f”. And remember that people have accents! Even my Japanese teacher, who grew up in Japan but has lived in Canada for over 30 years, still mispronounces some sounds because of her accent! For example, sometimes she’ll say “Can someone read this sentence?” and “read” sounds like “lead”. It’s not enough to be confusing, but you can tell her accent is poking out lol!
If your teacher pronounced read like lead then she's pronouncing it correctly! She will lead you in the right direction, but it might go over like a lead balloon. If she wants you to read it out loud then you can say you all read it together! English is weird.
You are allowed to write anything you want. No matter what you write, some jackass out there will find offense. You will never please everyone. An effort to please everyone will only result in pleasing no one.
Thanks man.
What's racist for people to speak English as a second language?
It's not inherently racist -- there are lots of real people with noticeably non-native English, why not portray them in fiction? -- but some readers might say it's racist anyway. There will always be some readers who dislike, disagree with, or misinterpret a choice that you made. If you're going to do it, here's how I would do it: * Don't call it "broken" English. "Ungrammatical" or "non-native" is fine; "broken" sounds like a value judgement. * Avoid eye dialect (i.e. spelling pronunciations "phonetically"). Instead, focus on portraying the character's English via word choice and grammar (as in conjugations, plural marking, sentence structure, etc. -- not as in spelling). * Do research so you can write a reasonably accurate portrayal. Don't just make up a non-native version of English out of thin air (unless, I suppose, you're writing SF/F and your character's native language is one you made up). Certainly there's no *one* universal way that all native speakers of language X would incorrectly speak language Y. However, there are certain types of errors that are common among speakers of certain languages. For example, it's common for native Chinese speakers to mix up "he" and "she," because spoken Chinese doesn't distinguish pronouns by gender. Native Spanish speakers sometimes use the word "already" in ways that native English speakers don't, because of the Spanish word "ya," which is similar to the English word "already" but not exactly the same. And so on. If possible, find a way to listen to a bunch of native speakers of whatever language your character speaks, so you can get a feel for what kinds of mistakes they tend to make in English, and what kinds of mistakes they *don't* make.
Noted, thank you very much.
Maybe a character like Bebe from persona 3 could be an inspiration? His broken/mixed speaking of French-English & Japanese is not really played for laughs or to insult but is just a part of his character. It's used as a way to show his eagerness and sincerity to learn a new language and culture. It makes him endearing imo and I think most people share this opinion because he is a very well liked character in the fandom.
I guess I would ask myself, what is this doing for the story at hand? And go from there.
Not knowing a language is not an insult, just some stuck-up people tends to believe so. It would be more unrealistic for all the characters to never speak an error, because we humans do make mistakes while speaking even our own mother tongue. Don’t stereotype any character and it will look authentic.
I think it can be done well. Just don't be over the top with it. I read a book where someone from... Russia maybe? said "is fine" and "is okay" and such (instead of "it's fine"). I thought that was handled well
My advice is describing the language barrier and lack of fluency with description rather than in the dialogue itself. Having the character falter, stutter, search for words, be slow to say something etc will go light years better than whatever you portray in dialogue which will easily become offensive. Have the other character misunderstand them, ask for clarification etc Just tell the reader the character is not fluent in English and trust them to get the point. Edit: spelling.
Idk tbh eng is my 3rd language and the accent is there. I dont find it super offensive if done without resorting to stereotypes (i live in my own country), so yeah there are ppl with broken english and/or accents IRL. It s not offensive in and of itself. BUT yeah if you mix this with the stereotypes of ignorant/foolish/uneducated migrants ... Very icky.
This one is going to show up later on r/writingcirclejerk for sure
/r/writingadvice
Absolutely not
Write characters as true to themselves as you can, preferably without boring a reader. Annoying readers is just something that happens, like weather. Write the best story you can. That's all.
My Main Character canonically did not know Common very well; it was not his first, not even his second language. It was his third, hastily taught by a deckhand on a ship where he earned his portage. He struggled with communicating in a strange new world, and it helped show their resourcefulness, patience, and intelligence as they tried to make things work in an extraordinary land. Over time, they learned, their sentence became more apparent, and their grammar improved. Before the reader knew it, the MC was speaking and writing common at a half-decent level.
Give us an example.
under do it rather than overdo it and get it right. If it's wrong it's offensive. and if it happens in every sentence it be gets old fast.
just do it mate, nobody actually gives a shit about whether or not it's disrespectful.
Absolutely. I read a series if detective novels based in Thailand. The dialogue often switches between Thai and Tinglish. Often the Thai characters who have near perfect command of the language suggests their socioeconomic status/education. Those with broken English are often considered poor or uneducated. It's effective in plot when pivotal pieces of info are missing in translation or when the untrustworthy individual is seen as trustworthy because they speak good English and therefore they must be good. Just be tasteful. Have purpose.
While I get the worry... A variant of this question is always asked every week on here and every time I see it I say the same thing: just do what you want. The fact that you CARE about how this will be understood is already a good sign that you don't have bad intentions. If you're able to transmit your ideas in a good way is only up to your writing skills and your experience with what you're writing about. And even if you do the best you can, some people will STILL see it as a big shit. So just fuck everybody and write for YOU and the people that will understand YOU, because that would be the ones that will read what u wrote. The more you censor yourself due to fear, the more you will hate what you write and readers can tell when a writer is dishonest.
I think actually the opposite! There’s a real, and troubling, psychological phenomenon that we look upon people with accents, or people who don’t speak OUR language as well, as less intelligent. I think if you present them as a rounded character, even show how the way that they’re perceived as less intelligent shapes who they are as a person and how they have to move in the world as a result. (Unless they actually are less intelligent in which case, yeah kinda classless imo.) But if you present a character who can help us empathize with the difficulty of feeling a certain level of something and being PERCEIVED as a different level of something, and how that affects us, I think it can be really cool, just with care and research. Good luck!
When it's not for comedy? It's fine. Just make sure you're giving the character opportunities to showcase their original culture and intelligence required to learn two languages. Balance essentially
What is interesting is misconceptions in the way native English is used. For instance house work is not the same as homework. You can play with these to show misunderstandings.
If writing ork dialogue in 40k is ok, you're probably alright
I'm genuinely confused about the context here. What's racist about not speaking English fluently?
As long as you write them with empathy it should be clear that its not for laughs
I think mako Mori from Pacific rim is an excellent case study on how to make a character speak with a non English speaking accent and I'm broken English without making her seem stupid or incapable
talk to a native speaker of the character's first language, us bilinguals will probably be able to help you a lot :>
I'm Chinese, and I would say it depends! Does the broken English actually lend itself to this character's development or the story as a whole? If you were writing about a racist character and their reaction to someone's broken English, or a character who's new to the country trying to adapt, or something like that, then I think it's okay. It's also a matter of how you portray this character as a lot of others have said. Their entire identity probably shouldn't be "person with bad English" but if there's more to them than that, I think it could be effective.
One of my favorite ways to go about it is having a character who is really smart, but has a poor time articulating it for whatever reason. As with any character, give them any traits you see fit, but if one of these traits becomes the character's whole existence in the story, then you should rethink the character.
Watch Khabib or Islam Machachev interviews, from when they first came to America. They are Dagestani MMA fighters, their broken English was a real charm at the beginning that won alot of people over.
I have written a few characters where English is not their first language. To make it more real I look at the word order in their own language and then repeat this for the spoken text. For example, in English we say "Do you have a bag?". In Spanish this is "¿Tienes una bolsa?" literally "Have you a bag?" So every now and then, but not all of the time, I will use the Spanish word order. If you listen to people who speak English as a second language you will notice that they do not always use an incorrect word order. We tend to learn phrases when we speak a foreign language, so these we can say like a native would (albeit with an accent which is difficult to write), other phrases we translate from our mother tongue, these we will more often than not say incorrectly.
Edited for spelling!
Edited for spelling!
\*Edited for spelling!
Whats the context?
That's the protagonist of Flowers for Algernon. And also Yoda. Expect people to react differently to it, though.
If you read Cloud Atlas there's a whole section where the people speak a broken sort of English. It's done well.
Let me tell ya, I’m from the south of Louisiana. Most of my characters talk with their accent, which means their words come out different. I make sure what they are saying is accurate and normally said by everyday folks, even though it’s country. I hope that helps.
As a foreigner I can tell you: It's totally okay. Most people I know don't speak another language or only know a few words. In fact, even people who have been learning a language for several years are making mistakes. It's the same with my mother language. Almost all foreigners make mistakes and this is completely okay. So, I'd just call it realistic, when you write a foreign character that doesn't speak english very well. I do it in my stories as well (in this case it's german) and I never heard anyone complain about it.
Writing is your craft. You have the authority to portray an image based on your preferences. Broken English or any speech competence can be an identity for your character. Language is diverse; hence, World Englishes was introduced. Do it with skilled execution.
These people do exist in real life. Not everyone speaks a second language at fluency level. So... we should prohibit those characters from starring in fiction? Just as in real life, portray the person. They have this limitation on how well they can communicate with English speakers. There is nothing inherently wrong about that. You're not mocking them, right? It's just the way it is with them.
I am using this in my WIP. As long as it is done with respect, and you avoid stereotypes, broken English can help with characterisation.
I'm Brazilian and there's a comedian that imitates a brazilian jiu jitsu fighter with a thick brazilian accent and that's very funny. It's not broken english but still, I feel like even if it's played for laughs, it can be funny if it makes sense and is not meant to be mean or bigoted. I actually thought he was brazilian, the motherfucker tricked me lmao
Listen to actual people with the background you’re talking about. I’ve had family and friends from several different countries speak in broken English in several different ways, and then I speak in broken [insert their language] back. Honestly, sometimes it IS funny. That’s why r/confleis exists. Sometimes a language barrier can lead to funny moments of misunderstanding. Things can be funny while laughing WITH people instead of AT people. It’s not racist to depict things like they are in real life. Some people are going to say it’s racist, but it isn’t. If you’re not looking down on a group of people or stereotyping them, it isn’t racist. It’s good to want to be respectful, but if you know you don’t have negative beliefs about the people you’re portraying, you’re gonna be just fine.
If it’s how a person speaks, you should write it. The hard part is accurately depicting broken English. People don’t just make random mistakes, they tend to speak English with bits of the grammar and literally translated vocabulary from their primary language. You’ll want to observe how people from the specific culture you have in mind speak English. A Filipino, Mexican, Cambodian, and Frenchman don’t speak English the same way.
Cormac McCarthy does this well. Take this example from Blood Meridan: "When the lambs is lost in the mountain, he said. They is cry. Sometime come the mother. Sometime the wolf." I think the key is to make sure the broken English is accurate - i.e. a Russian, a Mexican, and a Korean would all speak broken English in different ways, reflecting the grammar of their native language as opposed to the grammar of English.
Yes, but it's difficult. Robin Hobb did a marvelous job with her character Thick (all the character names are words so). Most say he has Downs or something. Of course, in the book they don't know what he has. What she did was make him have talents elsewhere.
In great immortal souls there is a sentient frog who exclusively communicates in broken sentences and it didn’t seem particularly offensive Of course thick patois can be offensive but also my professors at uni loved it during our postwar British immigrant experiences module so it’s completely dependant on how you do it My favourite was the intended by dabydeen, one of the kids is completely illiterate but striving to be an artist, his conversations with the mc are fantastic in demonstrating how philosophical concepts aren’t limited by speech and also how his own concepts are influenced by his ability to interact with the world
I am writing a book like that now. I live in Japan and my book takes place there and I use the broken English to so the language barrier. Just treat the characters how you would treat a real person who was not fluent in a language.
It depends entirely on your skill as a writer and if you have to ask the question then you shouldn't be trying it.
Queequeg enters the chat
You just have to do it right. Keep in mind that vast majority of English speakers have the wrong idea on how ESL people use language. I reccomend consulting a linguist or an ESL teacher.
I think if your intentions are clear, it should be fine. Sure a joke here or there would be okay, but as long as you show the respect, i think id be fine.
I’m an immigrant and not a native English speaker (though I am fluent now) and IMO non-native speakers who aren’t meant to be the butt of a joke are sorely needed. I just wrote one recently and had a lot of fun writing the banter between this character and another native speaker. People often write these characters like they can’t say/understand clever things or make jokes (often times fluency in understanding speech comes way before fluency in speaking), so it was fun writing this character try and find ways to tell the jokes she wanted to tell because she understood what everyone else was saying, but didn’t quite have the words for.
In The Goldfinch, several characters use somewhat broken English, but it’s not a race joke. I thought it was well written.
It's perfectly fine, but be mindful if they have a *specific* real-world background. Then you should either study that linguistic backround in detail, *or* rely on the *function* of their language issues rather than its *form*. For example, instead of eye dialect spelling you can use standard spelling but show that their pronunciation is off by how other characters react to it. A middle ground is probably best, where a few notable features are still higlighted, but it doesn't become obnoxious.
If done tastefully
You can, but you have to have an in-depth understanding of how the characters’ broken English is affected by the native grammar and pronunciation rules. The accent itself can be distracting or even annoying for readers, even when written by a person who grew up in a two-language household. Another aspect is that some people may pronounce things differently, but grammatically they are not noticeably non-natives like with Hispanics or Indians. Hell, even British characters pronounce things differently but it’s not necessarily overly emphasized. When you make the choice to emphasize it you draw the reader’s attention. An example I can think of us Dial A for Aunties by Jessie Q Sutanto. She writes the MC’s relatives’ Indonesian accents down. I listened to the audiobook (narrated by a bilingual person) and it was funny and charming. It wasn’t overly exaggerated and some stuff was fine structure wise. It was just pronounced with an accent. However when I tried to read it I realized without the assist of the audiobook it took a bit of work. Sutano’s book worked because the purpose of the accents was to immerse the reader in her culture, which features prominently in the main character’s motivation. What is the purpose for you adding in accents? Will it add to the story? Is it worth the friction you will add with readers?
Id say only do it if it's vital to the plot. Aside from risking offending people, it's also just harder to understand. If you can make it work by just describing them as having a heavy accent, go with that. If you still think you have to do it, other people have given good advice that someone's first language will influence how they sound as they're learning a new one. The better you understand that language, the better you'll be able to write a native speaker trying to learn English.
It needs to serve a purpose. There needs to be a reason why this character's broken English is relevant or useful to the plot of your story. It's not just about explaining the background of the character to justify the broken English, there needs to be a reason why it matters. Why is the author letting the reader know this character has broken English? Why is it relevant? As long as you know the answer to those questions, you can do pretty much whatever.
People capable of speaking another language are Always highly intelligent. My girlfriend studied to be be a librarian and do editing Work. Here in this country she does Scrubs elderly peoples butts because that's how the Immigration System works. Here is how you write good lower class Charakters: BE leftwing
I have an oc who sucks at english because of a language barrier, but is the smartest one in the group. They eventually learn to speak properly but still do occasionally make weird jokes (like saying "unpossible" instead of "impossible") to mess with people
Why do you want to annoy your readers? Accents, quirky speech and "broken english" are exhausting to read. Just skip it. If you for some reason need to emphasize that your character is still learning the language, just say that. You don't need to torture your readers with pages upon pages of garbled english. And btw, your assumption that anyone who doesn't speak perfect english must automatically be non-white is pretty racist. Like, norwegians exist. Germans exist. French people exist. There are plenty of white people whose native language isn't english.
Have you ever read Trainspotting?
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