Asking for an opinion

[Saxon_Hart]

I have a plot bunny in mind. The protagonist is a native Russian, and it will be written in first person POV. My question is would it be better if the entire story was written in clipped English like this person would speak? Or should that flavor be used only in the dialog?

 

[oggbashan]

A little flavour in the dialogue would be enough. Too much makes the story difficult to read.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I think it'd feel weird if the protag speaks Russian-flavoured English in dialogue, but doesn't have any of that flavour in how he tells the rest of the story, unless there's some sort of "that was 20 years ago and my English is much better now" justification. So I'd say use the same flavour for both, but make sure that flavour isn't going to be too distracting for the reader.

IMHO, a few idiosyncrasies can go a long way to establishing a character's voice. One of my co-workers comes from Russia, and asks questions like this: "We are going to a meeting tomorrow, isn't it?"

 

[Sammael Bard]

You can go for it if you're trying something short and satirical like this:

https://www.literotica.com/s/jake-and-jed-meet-the-thespians

Bad/Clipped English isn't something I'd use if I were writing something huge, like a novel. Then, it'll become difficult to read or even concentrate. Using a unique style over the entire course of a story seems to work too.

Anyway, good luck.

 

[Hypoxia]

Use straight Anglish for the narrative and some (but not too much) vernacular for flavor in dialogue. A Russian guy can say "Yób tvoyú mat, fuck your mother!" once or twice but don't go overboard. Many of my stories have speakers of Spanish or Native American languages. I'll throw in a few exclamations and rough translations but I keep the speech patterns consistent.

Patterns: A person's normal speech may be very clipped, skipping articles like 'the' and 'a' or personal pronouns. That's fine for short speech; long monologues may be hard to read, same as drawling Br'er Rabbit-type vernacular. Read it aloud; does it sound natural?

 

[Carnevil9]

I'm going to disagree with the majority here. You don't need to be consistent. Lay it on a bit thick in the first few paragraphs, and that will cement the character in the mind of your readers. Then cut it out. They will remember that he speaks with an accent or whatever, and you can stick with mostly standard, easy-to-read prose. Toss in an occasional "nyet" or "tovarich" once per page or so and that should be plenty.

That's pretty much what I did in my story "Femme Fatale" with a female Russian super-spy, and I was reasonably pleased with the results.

 

[ColetteJulie]

I'm not sure about Russians, but Germans who tend to directly translate what they're saying normally write an entire sentence and put the verb at the end. Eg: 'It was to the Royal Palace Spring Ball that we went.'

The Dutch and French use a double negative that seriously screws translation. Je ne suis pas. Ek doen niet dat ni.

As far as my reading requirements go, if someone writes in english they should use proper english, even when the vernacular differs. Eg: Americans will say gonna or wanna when they speak, but it's poor english if an author repeats vernacular without it adding to the plot.

I wrote a little something a while back and one character was German. I said he was German, I gave him a typical German name. In one or two sentences I purposely changed the sentence structure to make the verb fit at the end, but he spoke properly spelled english. I also had him say German words, like mein chatz, which everyone knows and understands.

Anyway, that's how I would do it. Everyone knows what dosvadanya is and nyet and da. Use those words in sentences to accentuate the fact that he' Russian.

 

[GoldenCojones]

You asked for an opinion so here is mine. If you are writing in first person then you need to write in the main persons voice which includes mannerisms and speech inflections. It can't be him "telling" the story if he isn't the one telling it.

In the scenario you describe above, I would seriously consider making it third person so that you have a narrator telling the story. You could remain consistent with being his POV, always hovering over his shoulder, and you could make it third person limited so that the reader doesn't know what is going on outside his POV. About the only thing you can't do with limited third is lie to the reader. In rare cases you can get away with that in first person.

But, if it HAS to be first person for a reason, then in my opinion, it must be written with his voice.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I think I go with Bramblethorn on this one. Do it with a light touch and throughout - that helps establish character. Gorza wrote a story with a French first person PoV which came off really well. curl4ever and I reviewed it here.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

"This is the sixty-nine,” I told him, presenting the magazine in front of him. I put my fingers—two of them—on the action, so that he would not overlook it.

“Why is it dubbed sixty-nine?” he asked, because he is a person hot on fire with curiosity.

“It was invented in 1969. My friend Gregory knows a friend of the nephew of the inventor.”

“What did people do before 1969?”

“Merely blowjobs and masticating box, but never in chorus.” He will be made a VIP if I have a thing to do with it.

This is where the story begins.

But first I am burdened to recite my good appearance. I am unequivocally tall. I do not know any women who are taller than me. The women I know who are taller than me are lesbians, for whom 1969 was a very momentous year.

--JSF, Everything is Illuminated

 

[Handley_Page]

One thing not so far mentioned is the humour of a slight mis-translation, or an expression used in the wrong place.
One example might be the character of Ziva David in NCIS, as she was learning idiomatic language. Such incidents may remind the reader that the character is 'foreign', as well as adding a little something to the story.

 

[JKendallDane]

I like Brambleton and Naoko's suggestions best, with a little of Carnevil9's idea tossed in also. Trying to pull off accents and dialects all the way through a story would probably be a bit much for most readers.

I especially like the idea of hitting it hard and heavy the first few paragraphs to establish the baseline, then intersperse some words and/or phrases throughout the rest of the story...more as a subconscious reminder than anything else. Perhaps have your protagonist revert to a thick accent and dialect or even full-blown Russian when he gets excited or angry?

Look at it as if you're flavoring something on the stove. A little spice added here and there occasionally is fine. Too little doesn't accomplish much, and too much overpowers everything else.

 

[PrincepsCyberius]

I have a plot bunny in mind. The protagonist is a native Russian, and it will be written in first person POV. My question is would it be better if the entire story was written in clipped English like this person would speak? Or should that flavor be used only in the dialog?

Dialogue only. Otherwise it gets tiring and tiresome.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

You asked for an opinion so here is mine. If you are writing in first person then you need to write in the main persons voice which includes mannerisms and speech inflections. It can't be him "telling" the story if he isn't the one telling it.

In the scenario you describe above, I would seriously consider making it third person so that you have a narrator telling the story. You could remain consistent with being his POV, always hovering over his shoulder, and you could make it third person limited so that the reader doesn't know what is going on outside his POV. About the only thing you can't do with limited third is lie to the reader. In rare cases you can get away with that in first person.

But, if it HAS to be first person for a reason, then in my opinion, it must be written with his voice.

Agreed.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Oh, I forgot to say - depending on the character, one way you can mark out a non-native speaker without irritating readers is to have them speak better English than those around them.

I've just written one with an Arabic character who's been in Australia long enough to speak very good English. One of the things I aimed to do with Rafi's dialogue is put almost everything in complete grammatical sentences (a beta reader described her speech as "stuffy") because she knows the rules but isn't quite sure when she's allowed to break them.

I especially like the idea of hitting it hard and heavy the first few paragraphs to establish the baseline, then intersperse some words and/or phrases throughout the rest of the story...more as a subconscious reminder than anything else. Perhaps have your protagonist revert to a thick accent and dialect or even full-blown Russian when he gets excited or angry?

Yes, varying ESL patterns with state of mind can work well. When Rafi slips into more colloquial English, it signifies trust - she knows the person she's talking to won't judge her for it. I had another character in my first story here who tries to mask his Greek origins, but slips a little when he's drunk. I don't know if it's obvious to readers, but it helps me keep the voice right.

 

[MagicaPractica]

Since it is to be first person, I would use the same speech patterns and mannerisms throughout but go with a light touch. A little goes a long way and, as others suggested, malapropisms can be helpful. Also, his speech could become more terse and heavily accented in times of high emotion.

 

[MSTarot]

I would go with clean wording in anything that is internal. His thoughts, feelings observations, emotions. The fact being those would, more likely than not, be in his native Russian.

he doesn't think in English after all.

When he speaks, however, yes. A clipped Russian accent with a few well-researched Russian words tossed into to add spice.

You can even use that to your advantage by having him ask "How do you say?" something I have dealt with a lot in speakers from other countries. Especially with American slang.

Remember though, most countries have managed the English word "fuck" perfectly. lol.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

I would go with clean wording in anything that is internal. His thoughts, feelings observations, emotions. The fact being those would, more likely than not, be in his native Russian.

he doesn't think in English after all.

When he speaks, however, yes. A clipped Russian accent with a few well-researched Russian words tossed into to add spice.

You can even use that to your advantage by having him ask "How do you say?" something I have dealt with a lot in speakers from other countries. Especially with American slang.

Remember though, most countries have managed the English word "fuck" perfectly. lol.

It isn't how he speaks, or even how he thinks--though both of those are probably important things to consider.

It's how he writes. In a first person narration, the character is positioned as the writer of the story. How would this man write? That's a related but separate issue than the other factors. Huckleberry Finn doesn't read like it does because that is how he thinks. Though, it expresses his thoughts--and way of thinking--well. It reads that way because he is WRITING it.

"You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly—Tom's Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before."--Mark Twain

 

[ColetteJulie]

Oh, I forgot to say - depending on the character, one way you can mark out a non-native speaker without irritating readers is to have them speak better English than those around them.

I've just written one with an Arabic character who's been in Australia long enough to speak very good English. One of the things I aimed to do with Rafi's dialogue is put almost everything in complete grammatical sentences (a beta reader described her speech as "stuffy") because she knows the rules but isn't quite sure when she's allowed to break them.



Yes, varying ESL patterns with state of mind can work well. When Rafi slips into more colloquial English, it signifies trust - she knows the person she's talking to won't judge her for it. I had another character in my first story here who tries to mask his Greek origins, but slips a little when he's drunk. I don't know if it's obvious to readers, but it helps me keep the voice right.

Agreed, most non english people who reach the level of english that they stop using speech inflections don't contract words when they can, and they stop clipping words.

I think Twain works because it's still english, not a foreign language so we adapt easily because we've all heard the southern twang in speech.

 

[Ewobbit]

My two cents (sorry I don't have a pence for change) is this;

DON'T go overboard.

I remember picking up a sci-fi book a long while back. Can't remember the name or the author. (This was about twenty-five, thirty years mind.) The author in question got all sorts of anal about working in a different (alien) language. There was not a line in the one hundred pages I read that didn't have a word from this made up language in it.

Now, linguistics are actually kind of fun for me. I was one of few people in my classes that actually enjoyed reading Beowulf in the original. And I liked what C.J. Cherryh did with her Atevi series.

But, this author (whomever they were) flat wore me out. After one hundred pages, I just flat didn't care what else might be going to happen and at least part of it was because I would have to keep flipping back to the glossary to see what was happening.

For me, I would probably approach the problem one of two ways.

As a piece of work the person in question wrote in their mother tongue which was then translated by the very best translator available. Maybe even stick a note in, "As translated by John Quincy Pundit" to fit in with the idea that it's a real translation.

Or, a LIGHT peppering of two or three recurring phrases from the mother tongue in amongst grammatically overcorrect English. And not more than one "foreign" word in one hundred to one hundred and fifty lines and only those that can be guessed from contextual clues.

(And yes, before anyone points it out, I know I overdid it in my Valentine story with Tex-mex.)

 

[PennLady]

I have a plot bunny in mind. The protagonist is a native Russian, and it will be written in first person POV. My question is would it be better if the entire story was written in clipped English like this person would speak? Or should that flavor be used only in the dialog?

I think a "clipped English" would get old pretty fast. My initial reaction is that you'd be better to make it third person, use standard or proper English, and let the dialog get across the flavor of his accent, level of fluency, etc.

Also, FWIW, I studied Russian for five years in school. I'm not fluent, but I do retain some knowledge and would be happy to answer any questions if I can. (I say that because I don't know your level of familiarity with Russian, and if it's better than mine, forget I said anything. )

A final FWIW I wrote a story (which currently isn't up on Lit) which had a Russian hockey player as a main character. If you'd like to see what I did with his dialogue, let me know via PM.