Language question

[Spectacular Sameth]

Okay, I'm writing a book based on one of my comics and a couple of characters are aliens (space, not illegal.) So my question is: how do I mention they are talking in another language? Due to how the story is told, the other language will be "translated" to English. So they're talking in their language, but you read it as English. When I do it in my comics, I put the words in "<", but I didn't know if I could do that for a book.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Okay, I'm writing a book based on one of my comics and a couple of characters are aliens (space, not illegal.) So my question is: how do I mention they are talking in another language? Due to how the story is told, the other language will be "translated" to English. So they're talking in their language, but you read it as English. When I do it in my comics, I put the words in "<", but I didn't know if I could do that for a book.

Italicise it ?  I've seen that used to indicate "character speaking in non-English language".

[Soulless Mystic5523]

Italicize it, and make mention somewhere the first time it happens that they're speaking their native tongue.

[LizW65]

Leaving off the quotation marks can also be effective, indicating as it does that the sounds are produced by some means other than standard vocal cords.

[Shecky]

Leaving off the quotation marks can also be effective, indicating as it does that the sounds are produced by some means other than standard vocal cords.

Spooooooooooky.

[comprex]

How do you know they're not illegal?

[Spectacular Sameth]

Leaving off the quotation marks can also be effective, indicating as it does that the sounds are produced by some means other than standard vocal cords.

They are actually using vocal cords, though.

[novium]

italicize. I think. Depending on what person you're writing in, it could be very hard to sneak in a way to overtly say they're speaking another language. Perhaps have another character react to it. Or have one ask the other how they should put something in english (or whatever).

[meg_evonne]

So sometimes italicized is used for personal internal dialog to offset from spoken dialog in 1st POV, what do you do then?

To be honest, I don't see why you don't continue the way you do them in the comics as long as it makes sense to the reader what you are doing.  If you wish to publish it eventually--they'll probably tell you how it should be done and you might need to negotiate that you don't want to change it!  Language and grammar (oh listen to the groans from absolutism grammar rules advocates) are there for communication.  As long as you and the reader understand, then the mission is accomplished.   

Can you tell I was a communication major, not a language major?  LOL

[Guardian 452]

You know, it probably doesn't matter what you use, so long as you're consistent.

#For example, I've seen something like this to denote an alien language.#

You could equally :put things in colons:

Whatever you want...again, I think the trick is to just be consistent!

[Moritz]

In some comics, they use different fonts. Might not work in novels though.

[AverageGuy]

You don't necessarily have to offset it.  I've seen authors who use other characters, fonts, bold or italicize or capitalize to make it clear, and I've seen other authors who just write one throwaway line, continue writing as usual, and imply they're speaking in another language in future appearances.