Hi. I have a concept of a couple of kids in an Indian restaurant who are not happy with their meal. They say something to the waiter who talks to his manager. The problem is, I know what I would like the waiter to say but I do not speak the language. Do I really need to learn the language or is their another way around this problem?

P.S. Thanks for your help on my very long first post about how to layout a script professionally.

Desmond.

If you want some English dialogs to be spoken in a language other than your English, then the best way will be to write those English dialogs between special characters like /..../ or *....* or within brackets as well. You can italicize the dialogs, too.

Do mention at the beginning of the script that "dialogs between these special characters or the italicized dialogs are to be spoken in [insert] language."

The native language filmmakers will take care of the rest.

I hope this helps.

Also, your thread title should be SPEAKING HINDI, not Hindu. Hindi is a language.

Thanks Yuvraj. I thought you might be able to comment on this. I love Indian food and have been to India. Were possible I will learn good evening and thank you. It is only polite to make an attempt at speaking their language.

Could you give me some ideas of Mentioning at the beginning of the script and how I should do this. As for the dialogue, I am a computer programmer  originally so
I would think /* Can you ask the Gentleman what he wants */

And I will now refer to it as Hindi. Thank you.

Just thought. I could have 2 languages here. A German couple in an Indian restaurant. I assume that it is simply to use different symbols for each. I also think that the description should be at the top of the first page before the first slug line with a space.

Quoted Text I would think /* Can you ask the Gentleman what he wants */

Usually, the translated dialogs are italicized. So, just italicize them.    

Quoted Text I also think that the description should be at the top of the first page before the first slug line with a space.

Normally, the description is placed on a new page after the title page. After that, you start your script from the next page.

The absolute easiest way is just to use a parenthetical.

Code                                                       WAITER                                            (in Hindi)                                   Hey boss, the kid at table three has a problem                                   with his Machher Jhol.

It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that. If you wanted, you could go one step further with the parenthetical and write (in Hindi w/ English subs) but that depends on whether or not you think what the waiter is saying is important enough that non-Hindi speakers absolutely need to know what he's saying.

What Lon said.
An alt is (Subtitled) next the character's name.
And then exactly as Lon wrote below it.

This is awesome.  I learned:

Hindi - an Indic language of northern India, derived from Sanskrit and written in the Devanagari script. It is the fourth most widely spoken language in the world, with more than 250 million people speaking it as their first language.

Hindu - a follower of Hinduism.

best,

Don

Just found this script and it doesn't look right. the 12 year old girl is not described it has her as twelve and not MADELLIN(12) and no pre warning of a different language as Yuvraj suggests in another post.

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