How to Format Foreign Language Dialogue in a Screenplay

The three ways to format foreign language dialogue

How to format foreign language in a screenplay comes down to one fact: the script is read in English by people who will decide whether to make it. The foreign language belongs to the film, not the page, so the format exists to tell the reader two things: what language the character is speaking, and whether the audience gets to understand it. Every accepted approach is a way of answering those two questions with the least clutter.

English is the standard because a reader cannot judge a scene they cannot read. The original language is a choice you make for effect, and it only works if the audience will share the reader's confusion. What is never acceptable is a page of Portuguese with no translation and a note asking the reader to trust that it is good.

The standard looks like this on the page. The parenthetical sits where any parenthetical in a screenplay sits, on its own line beneath the character cue:

INT. HAVANA APARTMENT - NIGHT

Rosa sets two glasses on the table. She does not pour.

                      ROSA
                (in Spanish; subtitled)
          You came a long way to say nothing.

                      DANIEL
                (in Spanish; subtitled)
          I came a long way to hear you say it.

The (in Spanish; subtitled) parenthetical

The parenthetical does two jobs in four words. in Spanish tells the actor, the casting director and the reader what comes out of the character's mouth. subtitled tells the reader the audience will understand it. If the audience is not meant to understand, drop the second half and say so: (in Spanish; not subtitled), or simply (in Spanish) followed by an action line that describes what the audience sees instead.

Punctuation varies: (in Spanish; subtitled), (in Spanish, subtitled) and (subtitled Spanish) all appear in professional drafts. Pick one and keep it for the whole script.

You do not need the parenthetical on every single speech. Once a character has been marked as speaking Spanish and the scene has not changed language, the reader assumes the language continues. Re-mark it when something changes: a new scene, a character switching languages, or a return after a stretch of English. A parenthetical on every line doubles the length of the dialogue block for no information.

                      ROSA
                (in Spanish; subtitled)
          Sit down. You are making the
          neighbours nervous.

Daniel sits. Rosa finally pours.

                      ROSA
          Now. Tell me what he said.

                      DANIEL
                (switching to English)
          He said you'd be angry.

Notice the second Rosa speech carries no parenthetical. It is still Spanish and still subtitled, because nothing has told the reader otherwise. The switch to English is what gets marked, because that is the change.

The header note: ALL DIALOGUE IS SUBTITLED

When a whole scene, sequence or script is in one language, a parenthetical on every character is noise. Replace it with a single line of action, in caps, placed where the reader needs it. For one scene, put it directly under the scene heading. For the whole script, put it on the first page immediately after FADE IN:, or as a note on a page before page one.

EXT. FISHING HARBOUR, LISBON - DAWN

NOTE: ALL DIALOGUE IN THIS SCENE IS IN PORTUGUESE, SUBTITLED.

Gulls fight over the deck of a trawler. INES (40s, oilskins,
no patience) hoses fish scales off the boards.

                      INES
          Whoever left this net is not
          eating tonight.

The wording people use ranges from ALL DIALOGUE IN THIS SCENE IS IN PORTUGUESE AND SUBTITLED to THE FOLLOWING SCENE IS IN PORTUGUESE, SUBTITLED IN ENGLISH. Say it once, say it plainly, and close it when the language changes back with a matching line: END SUBTITLES. or DIALOGUE RETURNS TO ENGLISH. A note that opens and never closes leaves the reader guessing on page 40 whether the detective is still speaking Portuguese.

The same note handles dialogue that is heard but never subtitled: NOTE: THE SOLDIERS SPEAK RUSSIAN. NONE OF IT IS SUBTITLED. Then write what the audience sees, and the scene heading plus the note set the rules for the whole scene.

Should you write the actual foreign words?

Write the foreign words themselves in three cases and almost never otherwise.

1. The audience is not meant to understand. If a character is shouted at in a language she does not speak, the reader should be as lost as she is. Write the line in the language, or describe it in action: He shouts something in Farsi. She does not need a translation.
2. A single word or phrase everyone knows. Ciao, merci, mazel tov, a name, an oath. These go in the dialogue as they would be spoken, with no parenthetical, because the audience hears exactly that.
3. The sound of the language is the point. A lullaby, a prayer, a curse the character has never translated for anyone. Write it in the language and, if the meaning matters, follow with the translation in action or as a second parenthetical.

When you do write foreign words, set them in italics. Italics are one of the few typographic devices a spec script permits, and a foreign-language line is exactly what they exist for. Standard screenwriting software, Zen Writer included, applies italics to a selection; in Fountain you wrap the words in single asterisks. A translation, when you provide one, goes in a parenthetical beneath the line or in the action, never in a footnote.

                      GRANDMOTHER
                (in Italian)
          Chi dorme non piglia pesci.
                (then, in English)
          It means get up.

Verify every foreign line with a speaker. A wrong line in the real language is worse than a right line in English; if you cannot check it, write the English with the parenthetical and let the translator do their job.

If you drafted in a word processor, paste the scene into the free screenplay formatter and it will place the parentheticals and italics correctly whichever approach you chose.

Mixed-language scenes and characters who switch

Most real scenes with a second language are mixed. A family speaks Korean to each other and English to the guest. A negotiator switches to French to exclude someone. The rule is the same one that governs all screenplay dialogue formatting: mark the change, not the state.

• Establish the default. The first speech in a language carries the parenthetical, or the scene carries a header note.
• Mark each switch. (in English), (back to Korean), (switching to French, unsubtitled). The reader needs to know what the third character in the room can and cannot follow.
• Use action for reactions. If the guest does not understand, show it: Min-jun smiles politely at a joke he did not catch. That single line does more than three parentheticals.

Interpreters need one decision up front. Either the interpreter repeats every line, which doubles the scene and is only worth it when the mistranslation is the drama, or you write the exchange once with (translating) under the interpreter's cue and let the subtitle do the work.

Accents are not languages. Describe the accent once in the character introduction and write the lines in clean English; phonetic dialect on the page is the fastest way to make a reader put a script down.

Sign language, invented languages and alien speech

Sign language is formatted like any other language, with one extra decision: whether it is subtitled, voiced, or neither. Use the parenthetical (in ASL; subtitled) for signed dialogue the audience reads, and (signing) for a line where the hands are visible but the words are not shown. If another character voices what is signed, that character gets their own cue with (voicing) or (interpreting). Write the signed dialogue in natural English, not in a gloss; the gloss is for the ASL consultant, and the reader needs to hear the character.

                      LEAH
                (in ASL; subtitled)
          You could have told me before
          the whole town knew.

Marcus signs back too fast for her to catch.

                      LEAH
                (signing)
          Slower.

Invented languages follow the same logic. Write the dialogue in English with a parenthetical naming the language: (in Vashti; subtitled). If you want a few constructed words on the page for flavour, italicise them and give the translation. Nobody in development will learn your language to read your script.

Alien and machine speech the audience understands is written in English with a parenthetical or header note. Speech they do not understand is described in action like any sound: The creature makes a low, patterned clicking. It is not random. For narration in any language, put the V.O. extension on the cue and the language parenthetical beneath it; the two stack without trouble.

Common mistakes with foreign language in a screenplay

1. A parenthetical on every line. Mark the first speech and the switches. The reader remembers what language a scene is in.
2. Foreign text with no way to understand it. If the audience will get a subtitle, the reader gets English. A page of untranslated Mandarin is a page the reader cannot judge.
3. Subtitles written as on-screen text. Subtitles are a property of the dialogue, marked in the parenthetical or the header note. They are not on-screen text like a text message or a caption, and formatting them as a SUPER or TITLE clutters the page.
4. Machine-translated lines. If you did not verify the line with a speaker, do not print it. Write the English with the parenthetical.
5. Phonetic accents. Describe the accent once. Write the English clean.
6. A header note that never closes, or wording that drifts. If the scene starts in Portuguese and ends in English, mark the switch; if page 3 says (in Spanish; subtitled), page 60 should not say (Spanish, w/ subtitles).

Every device on this page exists to keep the reader inside the scene. Zen Writer's Smart Enter moves from cue to parenthetical to dialogue in one keystroke, so the (in Spanish; subtitled) line costs nothing to add, and the free online screenplay editor does the same in a browser with no login. Everything else follows the conventions in the screenplay formatting hub; none of them change because the character speaks another language.

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