: Re: Footnotes for Translation purposes I am writing a novel that includes occasional words or phrases in another language. If I use a footnote to provide a loose translation of the word and that

@Debbie451

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First off, I basically agree with Cyn's statement that lots of footnotes can make a text feel more like an academic work than a novel.

That said, you say that the purpose of these footnotes is to help a translator.

Ask yourself: Why would such notes, in whichever form, intended for an extremely narrow audience, need to go into the text the reader sees?

One alternative approach I've seen done with good results is to provide a separate "translator's guide" to your story. There, you discuss things like the rationale for various word choices; why a translator might want to leave certain passages untranslated; the meaning behind specific, non-obvious terms; whether in different cases an idiom should be translated literally or replaced with a similar one; and so on.

Such a guide can be written in a much dryer manner than the prose itself, without detracting from the story you're telling; not least because most readers don't even need to realize it exists. It also allows a translator to take your intent into account, by knowing what your intent is, rather than simply translating the words on the page into what they think your intent was.

You do need to be careful to not make it too restrictive, but if you limit it to discussion of various forms of intent then I don't think that would be a significant risk.

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