: Re: How to interpret a language from a non-speaker's perspective? I want to create a believable conversation between a character who speaks Mandarin and English and a character who speaks English

I think you have a good idea in your second paragraph - look for words and spellings that sound similar to the word or phrase used. This gives potential for comedy or misunderstanding - for example the French puns in Oh! Calcutta! and just about anything Antoine de Caunes ever said on Eurotrash - which could be used to further the plot or develop characters.

If there's no similarity to a word in the non-speaker's language, you could try a description of the sound. In the [English translation] of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, Adso tells of William saying a word in his own language (English) which he (Adso) didn't understand, but which he didn't like as it had "an obscene hissing sound". English readers (and those of the original Italian audience who spoke English) would have been able to guess the word based on the circumstances in which it was used.

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: Re: How to interpret a language from a non-speaker's perspective? I want to create a believable conversation between a character who speaks Mandarin and English and a character who speaks English

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: Sensitivity with disorders/mental illnesses The novel is overall very distressing and supposed to elicit emotion from the readers, it's practically dependent on it. A few of the characters in my

: "Stealing" jokes In one of my stories, I have a character who is a bit of a smart ass, always cracking jokes at the expense of others and sometimes even himself. I often get inspired by

: Repetition of information in my multi-path / multi-play-through game - how to deal with it? I'm working on a story-heavy game with lots of different paths the player can choose from. Many times,

: Suggesting for my book's Blurb I am working on my upcoming book's blurb. One of my characters is a leader inspired by Hitler. I have mentioned him as "Hitler like leader". But this seems

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