Foreign Languages in an English Novel

I think I recall that "The Boys From Brazil" had characters speaking in German. But ... it was REALLY written in English. Just glaze through the first chapter and you'll find in the opening pages some secret meeting going on between a bunch of high-ranking Nazi guys somewhere in Brazil. In fact, I think they were at either a Chinese or Japanese restaurant in Brazil. One of the more shocking lines that still stands out in my mind to this day is when, after the secret meeting was done, they realzied one of the waitresses (who was Asian) evidently leaked some information about them to someone. And then one Nazi grumbled to the other: "I'll cut her fucking yellow teats off!"

And then there's anything written by Tolkien where they were speaking Elvish, etc.

And I believe the "Dune" series also had some odd langages.

Couldn't you have a leading comment, like 'they fell back to their native language..' or someone overhearing.. etc.?

The Kite Runner -- for the most part the characters are not speaking in English (but the book's written in English). I think the author did a good job.

And obviously: Memoirs of a Geisha.

MisterMonkey said:

What are the best examples of non-english speakers in a english language novel you have come across?

I have recently read Tokyo Station which was a good book, but in a lot of places it was easy to forget that they were speaking Japanese.

Learning / Inventing a language is not an option, but just putting something like "he said in Japanese" doesn't seem to cut it

anybody any thoughts on the subject?

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Don't most people just put "honorable" in front of everything and continually reference "face?"

Don't forget Lestat the vampire. You got French, Italian, Greek and Celtic language written in English

I'm in the middle of reading Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games (which I recommend very highly BTW) and it is larded with words here and there from different Indian languages. I think he has done it really well --- it helps emphasize the otherness of the world he describes.

All the Pretty Horses by McCarthy has some Spanish dialogue, but the major characters speak in English (mostly). The Spanish sections add greatly to the lonely/disjointed feel of being in another country/land.

*O! Sighs for the lonely disjointed feel!*