Seconding the "I work with kids" thing. Yeah, they don't do that. They're hyper and adorable, and their logic is definitely not adult logic, but they speak English just fine. And some of the kids I work with, English is their second language.
I think I saw one of the threads you're talking about with this thread, and restating the "Kids don't talk like that" thing. Granted, my youngest sister is going to be ten now, not five, but she spoke fine when she was five.
Yeah, I used to baby-sit, and the three-year-olds I looked after were pretty articulate - more than the cutesy accent I've seen in these posts, at least. Perfect? By no means. Still pretty coherent? Definitely.
Repost for HTML fail.higenshiOctober 17 2010, 19:43:03 UTC
I've been playing bitty Sora. And while I agree on the most part...
...I still use w in place of r. When Sora is CRYING. When he's SUPPOSED to be hard to understand. And that's more getting across that his speaking patterns are compromised by tears. I do something similar with adults.
I also use "otay" when he's crying.
However, normally, the only words he's been having trouble with are things like "exploring" which a five-year-old WOULD typically say wrong, as asploring. He's also had trouble with some names, but that's also normal. The only other word he's had trouble with is "Lieutenant." Which then, I just did this: Lew-ten-et. You still get what he's saying, while understanding he's having trouble saying it.
Yes, they are rather mature, and definitely speak well. However, they're still going to have trouble with some words.
I can understand having trouble with bigger words and sounding them out - that's definitely normal for a five-year-old, and it can actually be pretty funny.
The w in place of r, though...it just doesn't sound natural, even for a five year old in the midst of tears. Same with "otay." If you're going for them being incomprehensible or at least tough to understand because of their emotional state, it might be better to include a prose note to that effect rather than try to write it out in the dialogue, if only because w's in place of r's really does sound like a go for the Stereotypical Cutesy Kid Accent. Which means I really don't understand why you'd do it for adults either. It takes actual effort to say w's instead of r's, which might well be the reason I don't really think that accent is appropriate.
But I really don't have the space for a prose note there. :/
I. What. They're called brackets. People use them on Dear Mun all the time to denote stage cues, prose notes, and the occasional snarky comment. Why on Earth would you not have space?
Even for adults, it would go better with a prose note than an actual dialogue edit.
And we've deviated from the point of the post: kids don't speak with that cutesy accent. Look at the comments from people who work with kids that age; they don't. It's something to consider in your portrayal.
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...I still use w in place of r. When Sora is CRYING. When he's SUPPOSED to be hard to understand. And that's more getting across that his speaking patterns are compromised by tears. I do something similar with adults.
I also use "otay" when he's crying.
However, normally, the only words he's been having trouble with are things like "exploring" which a five-year-old WOULD typically say wrong, as asploring. He's also had trouble with some names, but that's also normal. The only other word he's had trouble with is "Lieutenant." Which then, I just did this: Lew-ten-et. You still get what he's saying, while understanding he's having trouble saying it.
Yes, they are rather mature, and definitely speak well. However, they're still going to have trouble with some words.
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The w in place of r, though...it just doesn't sound natural, even for a five year old in the midst of tears. Same with "otay." If you're going for them being incomprehensible or at least tough to understand because of their emotional state, it might be better to include a prose note to that effect rather than try to write it out in the dialogue, if only because w's in place of r's really does sound like a go for the Stereotypical Cutesy Kid Accent. Which means I really don't understand why you'd do it for adults either. It takes actual effort to say w's instead of r's, which might well be the reason I don't really think that accent is appropriate.
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And I said I do something similar for adults, not the same. I screw with the speech patterns a bit to get across that they're crying.
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I. What. They're called brackets. People use them on Dear Mun all the time to denote stage cues, prose notes, and the occasional snarky comment. Why on Earth would you not have space?
Even for adults, it would go better with a prose note than an actual dialogue edit.
And we've deviated from the point of the post: kids don't speak with that cutesy accent. Look at the comments from people who work with kids that age; they don't. It's something to consider in your portrayal.
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