Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A How to handle translation of a language in a comic, while preserving a sense that the language is significant?

You have two choices that I can see, and which one you use will likely be dependent on the amount of foreign-language copy you have versus the amount of space you have in the panel to display it: ...

posted 8y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:43Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26871
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:09:23Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26871
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T06:09:23Z (about 5 years ago)
You have two choices that I can see, and which one you use will likely be dependent on the amount of foreign-language copy you have versus the amount of space you have in the panel to display it:

1) Write the foreign language in the speech balloon with asterisks. The asterisks refer to a footnote at the bottom of the panel translating the text. I think this will be clunky and a little annoying, so unless there's some reason to display the foreign language in all the balloons, I don't recommend it.

2) Indicate in context or with an asterisk that the characters are speaking Foreign Language, and _within the balloon,_ the text is surrounded by «guillemets».

This has in fact been covered in a comment to a different question on this site:

[How does one present spoken dialogue as a secondary language to signed speech?](https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/4815/how-does-one-present-spoken-dialogue-as-a-secondary-language-to-signed-speech)

> This is a common punctuation for dialogue in a secondary language in comic books, usually with an asterisk to denote the language. – Joel Shea

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-02-22T15:21:52Z (almost 8 years ago)
Original score: 6