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Q&A The use of footnotes to translate foreign words in a novel

I would recommend just leaving it completely untranslated and let the reader pick up the basic meaning from context. In this case, we only really need to know SAHU is an insult and the direct trans...

posted 6y ago by Hink‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T10:29:33Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41072
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Hink‭ · 2019-12-08T10:29:33Z (about 5 years ago)
I would recommend just leaving it completely untranslated and let the reader pick up the basic meaning from context. In this case, we only really need to know SAHU is an insult and the direct translation is unimportant.

If it is important for the reader to know what a single specific word means, just have another character ask, what you mean by SAHU? Or have the character to say the foreign word and then search for an English equivalent. Those should be used very sparingly though as it would quickly get tiring.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-01-06T14:06:27Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 5