: Re: How to use Foreign Words and Provide Translation in Novel I am writing novel where the main character has small conversations in non-English language. This would really pull the reader into the

@Berryessa137

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Exploit the Medium

I have often seen creative use of fonts and formatting to evoke text being in a different language or to express that the voice of the character is particularly unusual.

For example.
the character of Death in Terry Pratchett's Discworld franchise always ᴛᴀʟᴋs ɪɴ sᴍᴀʟʟ-cᴀᴘs.

Pratchett also explicitly describes the voice as "like tombstones slamming together" and cast Christopher lee to voice him in the movies.

I've also seen italics, different fonts, placing the text in different colours or even wrapping in blocks of a different colour background on the page.

With "Black Speech" style translations I've encountered unicode exploitation to produce text that looks a bit like this:
..

H̳̘͍̙̝̮͑͂̔ͩ̆͑̓e̎ͨ̍r͖̠͎̥ͤ́̊eͨ͌ͧ̋̇̅ͧ'̼̳̱̯̼͛ͣs̩̼͈̥̺̟ͮ̈ͣͤ ͙̞̤̹ͅͅa̽̍ͧ̽ͤn͇͑ͣ̇̐ ̼̹̣̱̝͕̺̉̚e̗͉̬̳͑̃͊̾̓͆x̞̭͙̜ͭ̄a̮̯̽̃ͤ̿ͭ͂ͬm̩̖̹pl̞ē͇̭̗̜͔͕̺̊ ͚̭̭͉͉̹͉̈́̈͗o̜̲̜̪ͮ̎ͬ̍̿f̣͎͕̬͕ͯ̃̐ ̮͌͌͋ͥsͥͨo̯͙̝̞̪̞̊͌m͖̤̖̠̣̘ͪ̊ͪ͒ͭ̏ͅe̲͇͈͈̝̦̣͒͆͊̑̋ͬ ̻͇ͯ̑̀u̩͇ͤͬͫ̓̉̏̓n̬̬̹͊̽̿̏̈́ͧ̚ḭ͎̜̲̺̜̣̅͋͗̏ͯͨ̎c̰̦͖̻̍́̍̋ȯ͎͎̜͎͒ͫ̀̈̑̓ḋ̺͛e̦̳͈͗̃ͫͪ ̰̭sḧ̥͚̜̬̻̻́̋͌ė̜͇͔͕͗̏̊̇ͤń̯̈̐ͭ̒̂̑aͮṇ̳̜̖̲ͦ̾͒ͪͤ͂i̞̱̘͙̩ͯ͆͂̂͌͋g̱ͫ͗a͉̦n͈̺̪͍͚͛̈́̎̆̚s̖͕

..
Great for evil cultist chanting.

Basically, you can write english and use formatting to imply that it's definitely not "normal" or at least not english as spoken.

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