Adding foreign words

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  • Adding foreign words

    I'm adding a foreign word to dialogue. How I would I do this without confusing the reader (an english sentence with a foreign word)?
    Last edited by montevideo; 09-04-2012, 01:50 PM.

  • #2
    Re: Adding foreign words

    Some "foreign" words are pretty well understood by educated people, even though they do not understand the language from which those words or phrases are taken.

    However, I think you are talking about words that the average person will not know in a language like French or Spanish, or about words in a language that is so uncommon that only speakers of it will know them.

    I remember something of this kind from (I think) the original Cat People (1942). The female protagonist encounters somebody who says something to her and uses what I took (from context) to be a Serbo-Croatian word. I caught the word and was able to remember it. The next day I asked one of the doctors at our hospital, a man from Croatia, what it meant, and he said it meant "sister."

    As for how to handle this, I would say that it is perfectly appropriate to include a note in the action that explains the meaning of foreign words that actors are unlikely to know.

    "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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    • #3
      Say That The Screenplay Is Written In "Canadian"

      And, use the foreign word as an interjection, (or as the punchline in a surrealist joke ending in a non sequitor), eh?
      JEKYLL & CANADA (free .mp4 download @ Vimeo.com)

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      • #4
        Re: Adding foreign words

        wouldn't a note slow down the read, though? italicize the word, maybe?

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        • #5
          Re: Adding foreign words

          wouldn't a note slow down the read, though? italicize the word, maybe?
          I think the essential point of the question relates to the meaning.

          Reading a short note that defines the word slows someone down a lot less than having to try to look the word up on the internet. At some point somebody who is reading the script has to know the meaning of the word.

          "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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          • #6
            Re: Adding foreign words

            Originally posted by ComicBent View Post
            I think the essential point of the question relates to the meaning.

            Reading a short note that defines the word slows someone down a lot less than having to try to look the word up on the internet. At some point somebody who is reading the script has to know the meaning of the word.
            Unless the audience watching the movie is going to somehow have access to the note -- what is the point or the purpose of the providing the note to the reader?

            I had a recent script in which various characters were member of the Russian mob. When it was important for them to be understood, I simply indicated what they were saying in English and indicated in parenthetical, "In Russian, subtitled).

            Sometimes, when a non-Russian speaker was present, I'd simply have someone speak in the transliterated Russian and I'd have someone say, "He say he will kill you, m******r b***h b*****d."

            Other times, when the Russians are speaking English and simply incorporate the occasional Russian word into their speech, there's simply no easy way either to provide a translation to the audience, either through sub-titling or through someone else translating.

            So I don't do it. You get the idea. The Russian is calling somebody a dirty word. What exactly the dirty word is -- well, the actual literal meaning of an obscenity -- does it really matter? I mean, if I call you an XYX, maybe I'm referring to your ancestry or to some male part of the human anatomy in a vulgar fashion, or some female part of the human anatomy in a vulgar fashion, or some shared part of the human anatomy in a vulgar fashion, or some common human activity in a vulgar fashion - or some combination of all the above, plus some other stuff mixed in -- along with references to your mother.

            if you, as a reader, really want to know, I guess you could find out, but there's no real need to know specifically. The audience, unless they speak the language in question, won't know and doesn't need to know.

            And that's the point with intermixed words. If it's something critical, then you need to find a way to convey the meaning.

            Otherwise, you're doing it to give a sense of verisimilitude.

            NMS

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            • #7
              Re: Adding foreign words

              So much depends on the context, the words, the reasoning behind it, that it might be more helpful to give some examples of exactly what you are referring to, in this case.
              "The Hollywood film business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." Hunter S Thompson

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