: Re: Formatting multiple languages while avoiding italics for native speakers in their POV Looking at this question, I was trying to figure out how to format a small family of novels and short stories

@Carla500

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So, does the attempt to not italicize for native speakers make sense? Would having it not italicized for native points of view but italicized for non-native be reasonable?

I think this is a good rule of thumb. The point of italics is to show the reader that $WORD is unusual for the POV character.

So if your POV character, Dave, speaks LangA and LangB, and Nellie is going back and forth between them, Dave is going to understand everything Nellie says. He doesn't need to translate.

But if Bob only speaks LangA, any LangB words would be foreign to him, so those would be italicized.

If Jane speaks all three languages, then from her POV, you don't need to italicize words in any of those languages. (I would do this if you have any third-person omniscient sections as well, as the reader doesn't speak any of your constructed languages either.)

Separately, while I understand your "notionally translated" concept, I wouldn't italicize those phrases or words. As a reader, I would completely understand a character saying "You had a sands-damned bag you packed yesterday" without needing the unusual epithet called out.

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