: Re: Managing alien languages in Sci-Fi creatively I’m writing a story where alien races are in constant communication with humans, but I don’t want it to be awkward or have to use language tags

@Connie138

You should first think (even if you don't explicitly tell it to the reader) how such communication will happen.
Some possibilities:

Humans and aliens have the same language
There is a universal translation device human<->alien
Aliens have learnt all human languages and are able to communicate in any of them
Communication actually happens through computers. Your human write into their computer, which translates it into a format that the alien computers then translate into their language. This adds another layer of confusions. It's not only aliens and people misunderstanding, but also the way the multiple computers involved handled it (and no one really knows better to understand it).
Aliens have learnt one human language (Russian, Polish, Flemish...). The fact that all alien trade uses its language has made it also the de facto universalterrestrial language between countries (currently a place held by English, previously by French, even before by Latin...).
The aliens are telepathic. Humans actually understand what they want/mean but it doesn't have words attached. This would probably be the hardest to write.
Aliens can communicate only with some humans which are specially suited to receive their mental waves. This creates small and highly-valued cast of people that work as alien translators.

After you think how you want your alien languages to work, you would then design your world with that. Unless you want to "write" the alien language gibberish to the reader, most likely you should be transparently writing it on the reader's language.
Continuously stating “...he said in x language.” does not make for a good writing, IMHO. You should mention at the beginning of the story (or when your characters will start talking with aliens) how does the communication work. The reader then knows that they talk in "Classical Greek because X", and you can then spare from from stating it every time. You would only need to if that changed for some reason, such as the alien revealing that he understood all the remarks human were doing in from of him (thinking he didn't understood a word of their mother tongue).
You can even shadow the translators themselves:

Joe Doe enters the room where three aliens awaited him. Their own translators were in a corner, which were quickly joined by Doe's translator. Both parties silently evaluated each other while the translator negotiated the neutral language they would use for the interaction.
Joe: Our government decided it is not interesting in selling you the unobtanium
Alien 1: That's stupid, you don't need it for anything, it is radioactive and dangerous for your flesh
Joe: Still, we are not selling any piece of our land

The conversation actually goes through two sets of translators, which may be talking on a language none of the real parties actually speak (e.g. Esperanto). But those in the conversation are Joe Doe and Alien 1.
You have multiple ways to show to the reader how they works, for instance:

Since the started, one of the biggest hurdles was to communicate properly between the completely different societies and languages used by aliens and humans. This seemed to have been finally solved in the last decade by XYZ, yet ...
The main character illustrates the reader through teaching a different character:

The corporal had arrived to the space station the prior week and had never met the aliens before (...)
Joe small daughter was very excited on hearing the her daddy would be meeting with the aliens. Are they so ugly as in TV? How will you understand them with those loud noises they do when talking? See, honey, I will actually be wearing headphones that will cancel such noise and translate it into English...


By showing what is happening:

Doe hated the big helmet that would feed him with the alien language, and translate his words back into their smell-based language. It was big, heavy, restricted his head movements and partly obscured his vision.
After much quarrel with the other parties, they relinquished and accepted not having any interlocutor present. Joe Doe would be the only Blefuscudian at the ≪really important and secret≫ negotiations. The narrator then proceeds to describe how Joe proceeds to the room where that intimate meeting will take place, which is actually crowded by translators, alienpsychologists, technicians overseeing the well functioning of the devices...

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