writing characters who speak other languages
> similar sounding words.
if it sounds the same (table in french and table in english) or similar, the speakers of the other language often interject the word in that other accent into the phrase.
> grammar
grammar isn’t the same in all languages! it’s very easy to translate something literally and have the words completely switch up to make no sense. adjectives often switch sides—so you can go from “run fast” to “fast run”.
> accents
[this is my personal experience] but I’ve never meet a French person speak with a sterotypical “ze toilettes iz zat way” accent. actually a lot of them speak with faint British accents, with a lilt toward more French-sounding words. and just because you speak another language doesn’t immediately equal have a thick accent.
> accents (ii)
also another note: if you speak spanish and french, for example, a lot of people will speak french with the spanish accent on certain words, or vice versa: whichever you know better. if your tongue is used to pronouncing a word that looks exactly the same a certain way, it’s easy to forget to switch accents.
> limits
maybe the character understands Mandarin, but can’t speak it for the life of them. knowing a language isn’t always having every base down! a lot of the time, especially if it’s not your first language, you tend to be stronger in certain areas: understanding, reading, writing, speaking.
> searching for a word
another thing would be forgetting a word in their weaker language: they’ll probably interject the word they know in their strong language with an (as an example) english-sounding accent. or, they run through a really absurd list of words to find the right one: it involves a lot of muttering, one seconds, and held up fingers.
> switching languages (i)
I don’t see people do this often. or at all. unless it’s expressed, or they give up speaking in their weak language and convert entirely to their stronger one. there’s no switching back and forth, half sentences in each language.
> switching languages (ii)
I do this. personally. I know a bunch of languages—english, french, mandarin, spanish—and when I’m writing, or occasionally speaking, in a weaker language, sometimes I will mix them up in the middle of the phrase. this is more for writing, and speaking I can usually manage. I have turned in more than one fremanglish test. (also when I’m speaking, I’m more likely to call my spanish teacher 老师 instead of señora, rather than switch languages completely)
> education
my first language is english, but I had a french education: so many subjects, such as maths and science, I only know the french terms for—even though I know english better. and they don’t always add up. (a triangle (?? I think that’s what it’s called in english) in geometry is an equère. and don’t ask me what a rapporteur is in english.)
other fun things that I too often suffer from ! :
very stupid-sound descriptions for the simplest object because the word FLIES from your brain
freaking grammar again. it was on the list, but french grammar is KILLER and it confuses me so much in english. chinese grammar is almost nonexistent, as far as I know.
jokes! they don’t translate well. my science teacher made a joke about a poisson pané and no one laughed.
slang. you don’t often run around speaking how you do at school. (something that confused other language speakers, I found is that “what’s up” is used to say “hello”, and the speaker doesn’t usually truly mean it)
swear words often convert back to their mother tongue
