I agree with that. In a fic that i am doing, the characters frequently 
switch between English and Japanese, and it is integral to the plot that
some people can only understand one of the two languages, thus i need to
indicate the switch without saying it in so many words every other line.

Phil

prohackr@hotmail.com

Well, if the reader doesn't need to understand one of the languages you
could just leave them in the dark as well as the main characters:

    "Why are you fondling my breast?" Ranma asked, calmly trying to avoid
killing the foreigner in front of him.

    The foreigner just muttered something in English. So, Ranma pounded
him. Only later did he find out that the foreigner had said, "I saw Miaka
greet women in this manner in Fushigi Yuugi and thought it was a Japanese
custom."

But seriously, if you really have to use the special characters, do it.
Just be away that too many of them can be distracting. My pre-readers
mentioned this when I first sent them CMD 7, which had English and
Mandarin switches, so I ended up using descriptions to indicate the
language changes when the reader needed to know what was being spoken.



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Jim Lazar

E-Mail - mailto:jimlazar@earthlink.net
Home - http://home.earthlink.net/~jimlazar
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