#not to mention he didnt teach us any of this vocab | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

allurascastle · 7 years

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i didnt understand like half of that im apparently having a stupid day. or week. wait so people dont switch between languages usually? my stepmum who is chinese, i dont think she does this anymore, i havent heard her do it since she came to australia, but when i was in china with her, one time she accidentally started speaking chinese to me and english to the store clerk we were talking to. is that sorta what you mean??

Yeah! But let me add onto that, because I want to make sure that, like, I’m clear. Though somehow I think I may just end up more confusing.

Like, if my Spanish teacher said something in Spanish, I’d respond in Spanish (or try to; words I didn’t know or remember, it was fair to substitute bc it was a beginners class - but only at first. She wanted us speaking in ONLY Spanish, even if it was bad Spanish, eventually). If a classmate spoke to me directly after in English, it was natural to respond in English, like it was my reaction to speak in Spanish (though, speaking in Spanish took more effort bc I wasn’t fluent).

So, using them both is often, but - and here’s what I’m trying to say - Lance and other characters who are fluent in multiple languages wouldn’t have problems switching between languages the way a lot of White Writers (and I’ve been guilty of this in the past) like to portray it. (The word here is portray. We’ll get more to that.)

And the whole littering of dialogue (any English fanfic that still uses Japanese suffixes is a fair example of this, given they never explain why Japanese suffixes are being used in the place of English prefixes (like the dubs do; Mr. and Ms./Mrs. instead of -sensei/-san, Lord/Prince and Lady/Princess instead of -sama, and there’s not really a suffix equivalent of -kun or -chan. For someone younger “Little [name]” would be the equivalent, but otherwise - nicknames - Soul Eater fanfic is the most prominent culprit of Japanese suffix abuse in awkward places that I’ve ever seen bc it’s not even consistent on whether or not they’re using the suffixes or prefixes) even though the characters may not even know Japanese and are fluent in English, but that’s a convo for another time. Back to Spanish and dual-languages)…

Littering of sentences randomly with Spanish when speaking English doesn’t happen unless you a) forget a bunch of words and are speaking w another person who speaks Spanish/English (more likely, you’re stopping your sentence to ask “wait, what was the word for example?”), b) there’s no equivalent (the Korean concept of kibun comes to mind, our closest equivalents in English being “pride, dignity, honor” - if you hurt someone’s kibun, you hurt their pride, damage their dignity. Also, mistranslations caused by improper localization - Japanese express “I love you” with the (translated) phrase “the moon is beautiful” (with the implication that it is beautiful bc you are there with them), or c) you’re trolling or making a pun (which is very common, but mostly done w someone who can truly appreciate it), d) those are the actual names of stuff and not, in fact, random words at all (implication that they have no name in English. Quesadillas, for example).

So, there’s context for switching languages.

Like, me speaking Spanish with my Spanish teacher, practicing Spanish with classmates - but speaking English with my family. Like, Lance would use English (fluently, mind you) with the Paladins, because English was what they all spoke, and have very little reason to use Spanish unless he was teaching them Spanish or they knew it.

He wouldn’t just slip into Spanish talking w people he usually talks to in English anymore than I’d have used English talking to my Spanish teacher (noob exceptions aside).

Which is where I get back to the portrayal bit.

It is so painfully common in Voltron fics for Lance to just slip into Spanish for no discernible reason, whether it be phrases (90% of the time google translated), random words (and I do mean random), or just, you know, the author wanting to throw in more (google-translated) Spanish bc…? fuck if I know??

When writing a character who’s bilingual, it’s good to know the context in which they’d use a different language (Lance is Cuban, so if you told me he speaks to his mom in all Spanish, I’d believe you, but if you told me he just starts slipping into Spanish with, say, Pidge who doesn’t (for our purposes) know Spanish at all with only the excuse “sorry, it’s hard to switch (to English)” and no context as to why he’d suddenly start doing so when he never has before…? No event or special train of thought?? Just opens his mouth in middle of conversation that was all-English and starts using Spanish (I’m going to once more emphasize google translate Spanish because this has been such a common phenomena of White Writers being completely fuck-all with Lance and Language, L&L, and this isn’t even getting into Lance talking dirty in Spanish, but I will mention the phrase “pass the queso” which was an official “add some dirty Spanish to vocab” thing from forever ago, I don’t even remember if it was on a book, magazine, or an add anymore - ‘queso’ meaning cheese, so, fail there) for literally no discernible reason than the author felt like it and had no understanding of the kind of context that’d prompt someone fluent in two languages to switch languages.

(Another note: I do, personally, say no bueno when something really bad or cringey happens. I picked up the habit from a friend from Arizona - but there is the context, huh? No bueno as a response to something cringey.)

Shockingly, I haven’t seen as much of the (well, if I got into the attempts about Lance’s dirty talking, I wouldn’t hesitate to call it fetishizing, because that also happens a lot and the same writers who throw in random bits of other language, google translated 90% of the time (because the people who ask for an actual speaker of the language to help them usually don’t do this randomly and then the use of the second language feels, you know, like the person actually cares about the language and isn’t using it as a throwaway in an awkward spot - but I’m not getting into the dirty talk bc that means getting into a ship that I’d rather not bc it’s since been ruined for me by it’s fandom, so we’ll go with a gentle) misuse of language with Shiro or Keith? Eh, I’ve probably just missed it.

I forgot my original point here, so,

tl;dr I think I was trying to say people do use multiple languages, but not randomly. There’s usually a reason they use one language over another. A native Spanish speaker might speak Spanish with their family and English at the work place and French with a friend who’s learning French and German with someone else in private (or not), and they might mix up the rules (understandable and not unusual) or forget a word and substitute OR get mixed up when Spanish Mom and French Friend both talk to them (,, it can be HARD to keep conversations straight I send people the wrong message all the time when it was meant for someone else, so, like, UNDERSTANDABLE) if that makes sense

edit: and that there are Voltron writers who should probably do a little more research and ask themselves if there’s an actual reason for inserting Spanish (or Japanese, or Korean), or if it’s just there so they can say they have Spanish in their fic even if its use doesn’t make a lot of sense at all.

edit 2: but it’s almost 2am so anything else that makes me feel like I need a more in-depth answer (even if partially for my own sanity and not bc I think the other person actually *needs* it, fine line there - what I do for myself and what I do for others/based on my opinion of others) will have to wait until tomorrow. Maybe even after I get off work in the evening

#language stuff #my aunt tara speaks like 9 languages #it's really hardcore #RUSSIAN IS ONE OF THEM AND IT INTIMIDATES ME #i only ever here her speak English to me tho bc I'm an English Person #so it's her response to speak English w me unless there's a special circumstance

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