Re: Language Barriers and Whatnot.
Maybe the other guys have Babel Fish as per Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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Quite frankly, the idea that she could pick up the language pretty quickly is more unrealistic to me than the idea that there's some sort of Translation Convention in effect (or just plain the same...
View ArticleRe: Language Barriers and Whatnot.
I'm with you on this one. I prefer to avoid the issue entirely. Why is it more unbelievable that you've fallen into a realm with Talking Beasts and the Talking Beasts speak your language, when, um,...
View ArticleRe: Language Barriers and Whatnot.
I kind of like the idea that getting pulled through the portal into another world makes a change in your brain so that you understand and speak the language. You'd have to work out the exact mechanism...
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I'm a big fan of "language barrier? what language barrier?". I'm telling a story, not giving a linguistics course. Nothing interrupts flow like one either. Course, if you can turn not knowing the...
View ArticleRe: Language Barriers and Whatnot.
I personally favor the idea of having her learn the language as time goes on, unless the rest of your plot is already so complicated that it'd bog you down. I read a book once where MC from our world...
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Why are there PEOPLE on both sides of this hole? If there are the same species in both worlds, I would think there's an argument to be made for the same languages, as well. Is Pela any variety of a...
View ArticleRe: Language Barriers and Whatnot.
It entirely depends on what sort of tone you want this novel to have. I've read a lot of fantasies where someone from our world gets sent to another. Very few of them even address the issue, and so...
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The solution that's best depends on what you want to take from it and put in your story. In my story, there are several languages all being used in close proximity to each other - most only know one or...
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Is Eugenia the only person who has ever traveled between these two worlds? If there were others before her, there could be a person who is sufficiently fluent in both languages to help her (either some...
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I think learning the language is the most realistic option. The only example I can think of where I felt it was well done is in His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Can't recall which one had...
View ArticleRe: Language Barriers and Whatnot.
If the other world is magical there could be magical translation available. Having to learn the language would add a touch of the unusual and unique to your book since most authors go for the...
View ArticleLanguage Barriers and Whatnot.
For context, a pre-teen named Eugenia (but called Pela for most of the novel) ends up in the middle of a strange world after jumping into a hole (makes more sense in better context). But there's a...
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