: Re: How to write dialogue for someone who is intelligent but barely speaks the language? I have a character who is a refugee from another country. She comes to the protagonist, and they have a

@Candy753

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My wife is a gifted individual with a highly impressive academic record, and has been learning my mother tongue for a while now. When she speaks, she uses relatively simple words and grammar, but she can express complex thoughts even while struggling for words. A good indicator now that she becomes more fluent is ideosyncratic mistakes which are easily understood in light of her mother language (hers doesn't have gendered articles, and she struggles remembering which things in my language are male, female or neutral).

One thing that stands out is that by language itself you would not guess at her intelligence. It is only in the content that you can understand you are not speaking to a simple person. A highly intelligent person will struggle with having the simple language available to her express complex thoughts. Where appropriate, he or she might go to abstractions such as mathematics.

To make this character believable, write out their thoughts in the most high language you can conjure up. Complex grammar and sentence structure, multiple thoughts within one sentence to show connections between them, non-linear thoughts and interrelated topics. This is what is in their head. Now take something like Simple English and express that thought in simple grammar and words. Finally, add a couple grammer and word mistakes, if possible using the same type of mistake throughout the story.

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