Are glossaries a good idea?
If a screenplay has a good amount of foreign words sprinkled throughout, is it OK to attach a glossary of a few pages? Or is that an amateurish way to handle it? These foreign words would appear both in action/description and in dialogue (NOT to be subtitled.)
I just think that it would make for a smoother read to NOT have explanations of each word as it comes up in the screenplay.
– Alejandro
Caracas/Los Angeles
My hunch is that you won’t need it. When you need to use the foreign term in action, put the translation in parentheses right after the word. When you’re using a bit of the language without subtitles, it’s still a good idea to provide a parenthetical to help the reader:
Merry stirs a pot of kholowa (sweet potato leaves), while the children play tag. She fakes a smile as her neighbor NYANDO walks up. He’s fifty and blind in one eye.
MERRY
(how are you?)
Muli bwanji, Nyando?
Have some English-speakers read your script, and if they’re truly perplexed, a glossary might be in order. If there are five really crucial terms, you could put it at the start of the script, right after the title page. If there are more, a glossary at the end might be better. In any case, keep it to less than a page.
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April 15th, 2009 at 5:55 am
The Slumdog Millionaire script that I read doesn’t have either. It just assumes the reader will be able to decipher the word based on the context of its use. However, I really like the parentheses idea.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Epale, Alejandro, compatriota! Suerte con el guión.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:29 am
Formatting for Cantonese speech in Firefly:
MAL
There’s more’n one of us here wouldn’t mind sticking it to a [Chiang-BAO HOE-tze duh] Alliance bastard.
NARA
<Idiots. All of you.> [Nee mun DOH shr sagwa.]
…I like the idea of including the stresses in a foreign line.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:14 am
I know Alejandro mentioned not wanting to explain IN the screenplay for smoothness, but I think flipping back to a glossary is even worse! At least with John’s solution the answer is right on the page. So if it’s not something the reader can just get from context, I vote for the parentheses.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:33 am
GLOSSARY = AMATEUR
PARENTHETICALS = FUCKING PROFESSIONAL
April 15th, 2009 at 8:36 am
And I disagree with Russ’s use of angle brackets. Angle brackets almost always look like dogshit. And to combine an angle and an open bracket in one line? Nasty….like incest.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:43 am
I recently read a script that had a lot of Spanish or French dialogue. It left me completely lost as to what was happening (eventhough I had some second language way back in high school). So I ended up skimming through the script & not liking it. In that case, it would have been an easier read with a parenthetical.
SAM (in German) You never understood me. Let me make it clear.
A little like John suggested isn’t a real distraction from your story. However, if it’s a lot of diaglogue, in essence you’re maybe doubling the time it takes a reader to get through your script because they’re trying to read the other language plus the English translation. They may not want to give it any extra time.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:12 am
parentheses are a good idea!!
http://www.nyfa.com/film_school/programs/screenwriting/
April 15th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
A glossary would NOT be smoother than parentheticals for the simple reason that people would be flipping back and forth instead of having it written right there.
Although I’m inclined to say it’s easier to leave out explanations altogether except in extreme cases…the context will usually explain it well enough, and besides, to use John’s example, who cares that kholowa means “sweet potato leaves”? Something’s being stirred in a pot. We get it.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Someone brought up Slumdog earlier. Thats interesting because I was watching it at home on my fairly small T.V. and I couldn’t read the fucking subtitles. The stylish brightly colored ones….couldn’t read a damn thing. I was pissed. But about 5 minutes in, I realized. I didn’t have to know exactly what they are saying. The emotion and the performances and the scene action itself told the story. Anything we really HAD to know was said in English. I heard Boyle mention something about that awhile back and its absolutely true. I think its a wise approach to any film thats half and half, or just partly told in another language.
April 15th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I usually try writing stuff like this:
Merry stirs a pot of sweet potato leaves, while the children play tag.
She fakes a smile as her neighbor NYANDO walks up. He’s fifty and blind in one eye.
NYANDO
(pointing to the bowl)
How’s the kholowa coming?
April 15th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Another idea for when it appears in dialogue, from, Tony Gilroy, is to just right the words in English and put them in parenthesis. The first time you use this device, you use a standard parenthetical after the character’s name that explains what language the dialogue that’s enclosed in parentheticals will actually be spoken in. The advantages of this approach is that it doesn’t slow down the reader. And if the reader is an English speaker, having the dialogue there in a foreign language won’t serve any real purpose. The way Gilroy does it let’s the reader know what it says while also knowing that in the movie it’ll be said in, say, Russian.
Here’s an example from the “Bourne Supremacy” script (Note, I couldn’t figure out the scrippet, but the parenthetical that says (Russian) should be indented over the dialogue parenthetical that follows. That’s how it’s done in the actual script and it’s standard formatting):
INT. NOVATEL ROOM -- NIGHT 90
KIRILL enters. It’s a small room. GRETKOV is waiting. He’s forty. Professional. Trim and polished. Dominant.
GRETKOV
(Russian)
(You’re early)
KIRILL
(You’re complaining?)
April 21st, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Whoa! Have you ever been to Malawi/Zambia? Even if you haven’t, those “random foreign words” did make my day. As an aside, if you want some material for a new post and want to indulge in some musings check this out: http://fadeinonline.com/articles/minority-report/ I’d be very interested to hear what you think.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
How do you guys feel about footnotes? Generally, if i can get away with it, i’ll just let the context explain the meaning. But sometimes it just wont do. For example, how dya explain sailing terms in context? Or a specific local term that wont be familiar to someone who doesnt live there?
In Mancora, Peru, they use tuk tuks as taxis.
A tuk-tuk is generally characterized by a sheet-metal body or open frame that rests on three wheels, a canvas roof with drop-down sides, a small cabin in the front of the vehicle for the driver and seating space for three in the rear.
Most might know what a tuk-tuk is (and anyone who’s been to bangkok probably has used one) but just to make sure (and assuming its important to the story), would you consider it inappropriate to do a small quick footnote explaining what a tuk-tuk is? I’ve never seen it done, but it seems faster and smoother than making people go all the way to the glossary to read what something means.
May 24th, 2009 at 8:48 am
I still don’t understand.
I have a short film script, where characters speak Portuguese and English in the same scene with different people.
At first, I wrote “(speaking Portguese)” in parenthesis, but dialogue remained in English for the entire script. However, what was said in Portguese would not have the same impact if translated to English, and its translation sounded silly or unrealistic.
Moving down to the next scenes, the characters speak Portuguese only.
What should I do??? I like the idea of putting the translation to English in parenthesis, but that would be very tough to read (having the dialogues in two languages).
Godd news is, it’s a short film :P
Ideas????