- The All Around: speaks, reads, and writes both languages pretty well
- The Conversational: one language is stronger than the other; can speak the other language a lot better than they read/write it (a lot of kids of immigrants are this type)
- The High Schooler: understands what’s being said to them in the other language, can’t really speak it
Don’t have your characters randomly drop words from their other language mid-sentence around people who don’t speak it
Languages are a mindset thing. like personally if I’m around English-speakers, I’m speaking English and I don’t really switch to my other language (which is Portuguese)
If you’re writing a bilingual character who speaks Spanish and have them say something like “hey Chad let’s go to the biblioteca” to an English speaker I’ll probably spend 5 minutes laughing and then close your story
- Exception: the character is speaking in their weaker language and forgot a word (”Where are the…? uh… llaves…. keys! keys, where are they?”)
Otherwise really the only time your character should be randomly switching languages mid-sentence is if they’re talking to another bilingual
I don’t speak Spanish but I've legit never heard a Spanish speaker say “ay dios mio” to gringos
conversations between two bilingual people can take a few different forms:
- Pick One: they pick one language and kinda stick with it for the whole conversation (a conversation I might have with my Portuguese-speaking mom: ”You okay?” “Yeah, I’m good. How’re you?” “I’m fine, but your dad-”)
- Back-and-Forth: someone says something in one language, the other person replies in the other (”tudo bem?” “Yeah, I’m good. How’re you?” “tou bem, mas o seu pai-”)
- Combo: they speak a combo of the two languages, a popular example being spanglish, though basically every bilingual has their own combo language (”tudo bem?” “sim, tou bem. How’re you?” “I’m fine, mas o seu pai-”)
- When in doubt: just ask a bilingual to look at your stuff and tell you if anything sounds weird
Combo languages can look different depending on the bilingual
- My cousin and I (native english speakers) speaking our Portuguese/English combo sounds a lot different than my mom and my godmother (native Portuguese speakers) doing the same thing
- The kids of immigrants usually come up with their own unique way of saying things that are different than native speakers
If you’re writing a bilingual family the older kids’ll probably be more bilingual than the younger ones
also, to clarify: bilingual characters might say words in another language on purpose in front of non-speakers
- Either to fuck with them or just ‘cause the word captures what they’re feeling more (i use “caralho” a lot)– basically the point is that accidental switching is relatively uncommon
I know earlier I said that people will forget words if they’re speaking their weaker language but tbh I do it with my stronger language too so really it works both ways
Filler words are weirdly universal
- So like while bilingual people don’t usually switch languages around people who aren’t bilingual we’ll throw filler words in
- “ele me olhou e, like, eu juro que eu quase deu um soco nele-”
A lot of languages borrow words from English so it’s not too weird to have a random English word in an otherwise non-English conversation (my aunt @ my mom: “lilian você viu meu post no Facebook?”)
Sounds in general are just kind of a language transcending thing
- You wanna find out what someone’s first language was?? break one of their bones
- Legit me when I cracked my rib: “AIIIIIII JESUS CHRIST TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL”
- So if your character gets hurt they might make a sound of pain associated with their native language but will probably still speak in the language of the people they’re surrounded by. probably. It depends on just how much pain they’re in
If two people start speaking another language in public there’s a 40% chance they’re talking shit and a 60% chance they’re having a conversation like: “Where’s the bathroom” “I don’t know, ask the waitress she’s right here” “I can’t just ask-”
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