: Re: Should I "spanglish" a Mexican character's dialogue? I am working on a novel based in Mexico, and I am wondering if there are any strong opinions on whether or not I should put common phrases

@LarsenBagley300

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I would advise against it as it's not natural and seems to force the language where it isn't forced. I generally subscribe to translator chip theory of fiction, based on the concept used in Star Trek... Basically most of the space fairing peoples have a device hidden in their ear that instantly translates a speaker's words into the listener's language... thus Picard, a French man, speaks in French, which is understood by Alaskan Ryker and Russian speaking Worf (he was raised there and learned Klingon seperatly). The audience hears the entire exchange in English (or dubbed in another language where it's spoken).

There are some exceptions to this idea... When refering to a specific word from a different language for some kind of discussion (for example, if your characters are offering a translation of the word OR the word/phrase is not a known concept... Siesta would be the best way to discuss the concept as Siesta as there isn't an English equivelent) or if the foreign language is a loan word (For example, Veni, Vidi, Vichi is a well understood Latin phrase in it's non-native English).

In real life, most people who speak two languages fluently to be conversational will not drop into their native language while speaking their second language, unless surprised enough (Most people swear in native languages... and foreign curse words are great work-arounds for English Language works to drop some cursing when you shouldn't). The other time native language is spoken in a second language environment is that most bilingual people will do math in their native language, since Math is language dependent in the strictest sense.

If anything in your work, an English speaker in Mexico is more likely to drop into Spanish than the Spanish speaking character. While they don't engage in much foerign travel, when they do, Americans do typically try to learn some local language skills in order to be polite. English is commonly taught in many non-English speaking nations... between "The Sun Never Sets" era of the Bristish Empire, The Pax America period that followed and currently shows no signs of stopping, and the fact that the internet is very commonly in English... but again, since Americans don't travel outside of the States often, they do worry about not understanding the foreign languge they are going to vacation around and will try to pick up some curtsy phrases (please, Thank-You, I'm sorry, excuse me) basic counting numbers, quick ways to order food (Cause Americans are going to eat), the ability to ask for directions with a map (and to the Bathroom). It's normally not going to be asked in the best way, but most people in tourist areas figure if they see someone asking questions in very bad local language skills, they're probably Americans and will ask if they can speak English. And most countries find it endearing enough that they bothered to try rather than take offense. In fact their are surveys out there that posit that this is one of the American Tourists' better qualities.

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