Can I put Russian in a short story?

Question

I'm writing a short story for English class, and I have a character that speaks Russian. Of course, Russian has a different alphabet. So here's my question: Can I put the actual Russian letters or should I translate it to English or what? Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Hi!

Russian girl here :)



I wouldn't put it in your unless you yourself can read it, otherwise that would be strange to have it there when no one in your class understands it.

Plus, you run the risk of mistranslating it. Google translate for Russian is not accurate and you would have to study grammar to get it right if you're non-native speaker.. not that anyone would know, but it'd be kind of silly to spout gibberish that's 1) not correct, 2) no one understands.



If you are a native speaker, then just romanize it in a way so others can read the sound well. (like 'privyet', 'zaftrak', 'dojhd', etc)



Otherwise, if you dont know Russian, put it in English and include that they're actually speaking in Russian, or put it in italics to emphasize.



Hope that helps ! ^_^

Answer 2

Is there any reason why the character speaks Russian and not English? If the character is saying anything that is important for the reader to know (and in a short story you can't waste words on bumpf) then you can only use the Russian (your call whether it's in Cyrillic or English) IF you give a translation of what it means. Otherwise it's gibberish.

Answer 3

I think it would be more intelligible and less tiresome to just state that the character is speaking Russian, but keep the dialogue in English.

Answer 4

Just translate it into English, unless your teacher somehow reads and understands Russian.