: Re: Can non-English-speaking characters use wordplay specific to English? Would it be jarring if in an original (non-translated) story, the characters, who don't speak English in-universe, use "untranslatable"

@Samaraweera193

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With very few exceptions, you never want to interrupt the flow of the engaged reader, or endanger his or her suspension of disbelief. With that said, what will interrupt the flow depends on what the flow is.

If you are placing the reader inside the non-English speaking characters --if you are giving a sense of what the world feels like for them from the inside --then English puns may be fine, even if they don't make literal sense. (This also holds if your narrative is deliberately non-realist.)

If you are viewing these characters from an external perspective --if they are not the POV characters --AND this is a realist narrative, then it makes more sense to render the jokes they would tell in their own language, not the ones an English speaker would make up.

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