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

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Words in author's native language?

For French words, at least, it is mostly a pretentious way to show the author is cultured, thought funnily enough their "French" is often incorrect, though it will pass mustard for most readers. F...

posted 8y ago by Reed‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:47:44Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24277
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Reed‭ · 2019-12-08T02:47:44Z (almost 5 years ago)
For French words, at least, it is mostly a pretentious way to show the author is cultured, thought funnily enough their "French" is often incorrect, though it will pass mustard for most readers.

For other languages, there are words or concepts that are not easily translated like the German _gestalt_, the Czech _litost_, or the Japanese _bakku-shan_

Though, as suggested, it is also sometimes used to give it a foreign flavor and greater realism.

I think that it targets speakers of that second language only if the book is mostly culturally dependent and the readership is assumed to be bilingual. For example a book using Spanish words whose MC is a Mexican descended teenager having a Quinciniera.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2016-08-23T02:48:58Z (about 8 years ago)
Original score: 0