mixelation · 2 years ago
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Re: the French in the fic, tbh it's a pretty common loan sentence so imo if you feel it's best that way it's good enough for me. My first language is actually French and there's plenty of English loanwords and sentences we use all the time, and it seems wrong to try and avoid them at all costs when writing, especially if they have connotations that are not easily found in other French expressions or words. In the context of Naruto, where English is sometimes used (eg. Silent Killing) when the manga is obviously in Japanese, I really do think having some French thrown in is not that bad - I know some people think it breaks immersion to reference real life things (like here the existence of other languages) but language is ultimately a serie of references, so what does it really matter if the best-fitting one is a loanword/sentence?
Oh yeah, no, that was my thought process when writing it. I completely agree.
I think several people commenting didn’t get my explanation, which is that if you are already accepting that the fic is written in English (making the dialogue “in translation”), then you are accepting all the loan words English uses too, which includes a shit ton of French. Like I don’t think anyone is going to nitpick my repeated use of words like “rendezvous” or “reconnaissance.” I don’t think anyone would question “RSVP.” But I did pause at “je ne sais quoi” in my reread of the scene because unlike rendezvous or reconnaissance, it is a whole ass phrase and I do associate it more with a fake and pretentious French accent instead of a completely anglicized pronunciation. BUT it’s also a pretty well established phrase in English and you can look it up in English dictionaries (unlike if I had him say something like “no se que”), and it captures the tone I wanted in a way another English phrase wouldn’t, so I’m letting it stand.
My question was more about what would pull people out of a story (which I assume to be a pretty arbitrary line), and if something like “je ne sais quoi” would do it even if it’s a well established loan phrase and why. Like personally I’d quirk an eyebrow at “French braid” but probably not “Manila envelope” and the reasons for this are completely arbitrary, personal, and do not follow consistent internal logic. I’m not trying to argue there should be any rhyme or reason to it. I just think it’s interesting.
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