(This is from my own personal experience as a Chinese person who’s better at English, my “first” language, than Chinese, my “second” language.)
When your character is going speak unintentionally in their second language instead of their first one:
• When they’re tired, they could slip up and accidentally start a sentence with their second language. Generally, though, they realise and correct themselves before finishing the sentence
• When they were just thinking in their second language/ talking to someone in their second language. The shift from one language to the other is where they could get caught up
• If they were startled, after just speaking/thinking in their second language.Keep in mind though, that people very experienced in both languages will probably not be tripped up as often. Your character who has been speaking their second language for 10 years is going to trip up a lot less than your character who’s only known their second language for 5 years.
Unrealistic scenarios:
• Slipping into their second language in the middle of a sentence accidentally, unless they forgot a word they needed to use
Unrealistic: “Ok so you’re going to go down the hall and— 他妈的! I forgot my homework on my desk! Gotta run and get it” (The Chinese is a swear)
Realistic: “We’re going to need a… 车? What do you guys call that again?” (The Chinese character is the one for car)• Suddenly saying something in their second language, when they were just conversing in their first language. There’s a mental switch you need to make when changing from a conversation in one language to a conversation in another which makes those situations pretty unlikely.
Person 1: “Could you send the powerpoint to me?”
Person 2: “Just did that. Did you get the email yet?”
Person 1: “我– oh whoops. Sorry! Yeah, I just got it”
(Chinese character is the character for “I”)Bilingual things you could include in your writing:
• Thinking in one language when doing one specific thing. For instance, I almost always do Maths in Chinese. The whole structure of the language and how the words for numbers work out means it’s a lot easier in Chinese than English.• A conversation that’s a mess of two languages all mashed together. Frankenlanguages. As stated before, I’m personally better at English than Chinese. So, when I’m speaking in Chinese, it’s often with English words interspersed throughout when I forget the Chinese word. In that case, there is no mental shift between languages needed. Instead, you pull from both languages at once. Ex: “我今天在学校的时候跟我的 Chemistry 老师 discuss 我的essay on the effects of acid rain on 咯房的 roofs.” (Translation: today, at school, my Chemistry teacher and I discussed my essay on the effects of acid rain on the roofs of buildings.)
• Your character could speak one language at home and another language when at work/school/with friends. For example, I speak Chinese when I’m at home with my Chinese family and I speak English everywhere else because I live in Canada. This makes for interesting situations where, even though I am highly proficient in English, I lack some basic vocabulary. What is a blouse? Not really sure to be honest. I used to get “dress” and “skirt” confused a lot because I only used Chinese to refer to those things and thus never built up my English vocabulary in those areas. I’ve had to awkwardly describe the fruit I was looking for in stores before because I didn’t know the English name for it.
Anyway, if you need help with writing a bilingual character, feel free to shoot me an ask!