: 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

@Heady158

Depending on the language you could just... not.
For example take Chewbacca in Star Wars. Wookies can't make the sounds for Basic, and he spends the entire multi-movie span yelling what sounds like animal noises. But Han and several others speak Wookie and you the audience can get the gist of what he's saying based on their responses and Chewies tone. This can be represented in writing with something like
The Glavian's pseudopods began flashing in rapid white and red circular patterns. "Alright, alright," Your Protagonist replied, "No refunds, I get it."
If you have multiple POVs you can treat the languages as English after a throwaway "Protagonist A understands Glavian" for whoever speaks them, and unintelligible jabber/arm-waving/light-making for whoever doesn't. Readers are smart, they'll figure it out.
Alternatively you could go the way of Watership Down, by Richard Adams. In it his rabbits speak Lapine, but the reader mostly reads their conversations in English. For words of Lapine that have no specific english equivalent (Hraka, meaning rabbit poop, or Silflay, to eat outside) he at first provides fairly unobtrusive footnotes and/or sets them neatly in context. You might run across them once every few pages. By the end of the book, you get a character saying "Silflay Hraka U Embleer rah!" and without any footnotes or explanation the reader can translate that to "Eat shit, king Stinker" with no trouble. I personally like this way as it lets the reader follow along easily while still providing "flavor" to show that the speakers are of a different mindset than the reader.

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