Roleplaying idea: when speaking another language (elven, dwarfish), use Spanglish

[Douche]

Your character can speak another language in-universe... But you don't necessarily want to be "fluent" in it. To make it seem like your character only knows broken phrases, try to speak another language most people partially understand (which, in the US, would most likely be Spanish)

So you're a human that can speak elf somewhat. Instead of saying "Hello, how are you? We are adventurers from the Underdark!" in your regular tone of voice, you could say "Hola, que pasa? We are, uhh, conquistadors del Underdark!" in broken English/Spanish with pauses & uncertainty, to simulate you not really being fluent.

Would also be a cool stand-in for simply using cave-speak every time you play a low int character or something

[dps]

I kind of find this idea a bit insulting toward people who speak with an accent IRL (and I'm one of the least politically correct people you'll likely ever meet, so if it bothers me a bit, I'd say it's very likely that some people would be very upset by it).

Beyond that, I think it would be immersion-breaking.

[hymer]

We sometimes use the convention, when some characters use a different language frequently, that they then speak English. It also helps underscore just how difficult it is to switch quickly between languages.

[Concrete]

As a Swedish group, we decided that Draconic was actually English. A barely literate wyrm spoke like a chav, a fairy dragon was all pips and cheerios, and a real nasty frost dragon we ran into sounded like our GM's best Darth Vader impression.

[DrewID]

I could see where this could be insulting. However, as an English speaker, I did not find the Swedish group using English as Draconic insulting at all, so maybe not.

I think role-playing a low language level can be entertaining. I remember years ago, when two low-level characters encountered a higher-level Elven cavalier type, and the one (my character) tried to converse with him in the one language they had in common at all, and cheerfully said (insert failed language roll) "So, who cares about this quest you are on."

As we ran away full speed from a furious cavalier, the other PC asked "What did you say to make him so angry?" and I said "I just told him we were interested in his quest!"

Good times.
--
DrewID

[dps]

I could see where this could be insulting. However, as an English speaker, I did not find the Swedish group using English as Draconic insulting at all, so maybe not.

No, I don't see a problem with that, or the general idea of using a real-world language that's not your native language as a stand-in for an in-game language that's not your native language. I kind of took the OP as suggesting using stereotypical broken English as an in-game fantasy language and found that problematic.

[oxybe]

pft.

Spanglish.

Please.

We Acadians have been using that (although french/english) as our conversational default since, like, forever.

"J'va chercher le car pi on s'en va au mall."

"J'ai parker le car dans le back du lot."

"Arrete de waster ton temps pi cross la street, ya pas de traffic."

"Viens tu pecher? Dad a finally mis le bateau a l'eau, pi ye pare a partir, faut juste donner un heads up au wharf."

[Dappershire]

I could see where this could be insulting. However, as an English speaker, I did not find the Swedish group using English as Draconic insulting at all, so maybe not.

Why would you. They just compared English speakers to frikken Dragons.
As opposed to OP, who compared Spanish speakers to surface dwelling molemen, of either the hairy, or pretty, variety.

Personally, I think a decent roleplayer, can make his usual tongue sound as if it is a secondary language to simulate Undercommon, or whatever.
Those same pauses OP spoke of, do fine in English, to convey the same meaning.
I mean, if you want to throw on an accent, that's fine. Prepare to be mocked by your friends for the butchering, but that's the fun of tabletop. And it allows to to use language tropes, stereotypical as they are. "I have come here to, how do you say....kill you..."

[BWR]

We almost never do this because it sounds stupid. Sometimes we just do some vague not-quite-normal accent with non-standard word and grammar choices, but usually we say "he speaks X with a Y accent and you guys have Z amount of trouble understanding what he's saying' then just speak normally so as not to break up the flow of the game too much. The OP's sort of thing might be fun once in a blue moon but it gets old really fast, especially if it's the PCs who don't speak the local lingo very well.

[Esprit15]

I find this works best when two people actually share both languages, which is sometimes hard to find depending on where you live. It can be disappointing to be the only person in the group that speaks multiple languages.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Which is what makes English such a great languages for this. Suck it, English speaking world!

I've even heard a story about a Dutch LARP where a group of actual non-Dutch speaking people ended up not getting anywhere with an NPC because the NPC didn't speak Elvish. (Although to be fair, maybe that person actually didn't speak English very well.)

In certain parts of middle and eastern Europe you might even get away with using English, German and possibly Russian as separate fictional languages. Language education is a pretty big deal in much of that region I think.

[Professor Chimp]

We do something similar, I guess.

In our campaign, every non-Common language is assigned a real-life language, i.e. Dwarvish is Swedish or German (depends on which regions they come from), Elvish is French, Drow is Italian, Sylvan is Gaelic, Draconic is Latin and so on. While we still use plain unaccented English for practical purposes, it is assumed any creature speaking Elvish is actually speaking in French.

It's when those native Elvish speakers use Common that we use English with a French accent.

As for the PC-ness of it, we've had a pretty international group of people over the years, including an American, a couple of Macedonians, a Greek, a Swede, a Dane, a Russian and one Frenchman who speaks fluent English with a heavy Scottish accent. No complaints, so as far as our group is concerned, it is a non-issue.

[scalyfreak]

As for the PC-ness of it, we've had a pretty international group of people over the years, including an American, a couple of Macedonians, a Greek, a Swede, a Dane, a Russian and one Frenchman who speaks fluent English with a heavy Scottish accent. No complaints, so as far as our group is concerned, it is a non-issue.

Not surprising. A lot of things that seem problematic when described by a stranger online are perfectly fine among friends.If OP's group is fine with using Spanglish, it's a non-issue there as well.

I would say that using Spanglish specifically is a bit lacking in creativity, but that's my personal opinion that OP should feel free, even encouraged, to ignore.

[2D8HP]

It would be hilarious.

Even funnier would be the "Franglish", as suggested by @oxybe (especially in the style of the "French Knights" of MPatHG).

Funnier still would be the "can't afford a language, only the accent", "German" of the Dieter, Hans, and Franz Saturday Night Live characters of the 1990's.

Still funnier is the "Swedish" of: