: Re: How to deal with a story that 95% of it takes place in a different language country and the protagonist speaks in it? The protagonist is from a certain country, and in some point of the

@Annie587

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Most books set in a foreign country nevertheless give all dialog in the language of the intended audience. That is, if you are writing for, say, an English-speaking audience, you give all dialog in English, even if the story is set in France or on the planet Vulcan. For the obvious reason: if the reader doesn't understand the dialog, the book won't make any sense to them.

Sure, you could write the dialog in French, and then translate. But what does this gain? It's a lot of extra text that the non-French-speaking reader is just going to skip anyway.

The reader knows that people in France generally speak French, and will understand that the dialog is all intended to be a translation.

I've read many stories where they say, "Then he answered in French ..." and proceed to give the text in English. The reader understands that he spoke French, but you are giving the translation.

In most stories, the language doesn't matter, i.e. the story would be no different if everyone in France spoke English, so just translating everything doesn't cause any problems.

If language differences are really important -- like if there are characters in the story who don't know the language -- that's different.

If the hero doesn't understand the language -- say French to continue my example -- then you could give the dialog in French. But then a reader who DOES speak French will know what was said, while the hero doesn't, which could destroy important elements of the scene. You'd probably be better to just write things like, "The policeman said something in French. George had no idea what he was saying. He tried pointing at ..." etc.

The only catch I see is if some important point in the plot hinges on something about the language, like two words sounding the same or a point of grammar. I've occasionally read stories where the text must be assumed to be a translation, but a character makes a statement that's some play on words or a rhyme or some such, and I've said to myself, "Wait, but they all must be speaking in French. Does the French word for the big yellow thing in the sky sound the same as the word for a male child just like in English? If not, then there really wouldn't be any confusion here ..."

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