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Q&A How do authors incorporate languages they don't speak?

In many, many English-language novels I've come across characters who speak other languages, most often French for whatever reason. In many cases, such as with Ulysses and Lolita, this is a simple...

1 answer  ·  posted 12y ago by temporary_user_name‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:34:06Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/6584
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar temporary_user_name‭ · 2019-12-08T02:34:06Z (about 5 years ago)
In many, many English-language novels I've come across characters who speak other languages, most often French for whatever reason.

In many cases, such as with _Ulysses_ and _Lolita_, this is a simple matter, because the author was multilingual. He simply wrote the characters himself.

But that can't always be the case, because even someone who speaks French, English, Spanish, Russian, and Hindi might want a character who constantly references his Japanese heritage.

There must be time when authors want to include characters who speak languages that the author does not.

How is this dealt with? Do they perhaps write the content of what is to be said, and then find another professional to help them?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2012-10-31T13:44:05Z (about 12 years ago)
Original score: 20