First, hi everyone! There are a few passages and phrases in my story that I need translating. Unfortunately, they're in Mandarin Chinese (from a modern conversational speaker) and Latin (from an author who learned the language around the 1400s), which seem to be hard languages to accurately translate--I put a Latin passage through two different translation sites, and got two significantly different versions. So I was wondering if it would be possible to get a translation here from someone who knows those languages (it's only about 90 words total, but given people often charge for a translation service, I don't want to appear presumptious), or a suggestion for a good online service? One other thing is that at one point, the heroine reads the title of an old text in Mandarin. Approximately how old could this document be before a speaker of the modern language would have problems understanding it? Thanks.
Well Mandarin has been spoken since the 1420s, so you have some play there. I think even with dialects, you could still come up with a very close interpretation. Latin however, is much older so translation would be a bit differing at best. Though I would use a foreign language sparingly if it is not your native tongue. Unless of course you don't mind writing the passage in two tongues. Unless there is a high significant value to these two specific languages that it must be as such, you could simply have them explained that the person deciphering them speak/translate them into your native language. After all it is a book, and subtitles are not really an option, but an interpreter is if you happen to have cast one.
Hmm, I could get by with just having the first line (of an introduction to a book that's very important to the plot) in Latin, and then having one of the characters interpret it. But then I still need the first line translating to show-not-tell that the book is in that language. In context, the Mandarin is a character slipping back into her mother tongue under stress, and later on, another character using the language to reassure the first character that it's really them because of their distinctively bad accent. It's not vital to the story, but I feel that actually using a sentence or two of the language would be better than saying "they're speaking this language", you know?
It works either way by having or saying they are speaking a diff language. Usually the latter, so you don't have your reader stopping to try and figure out what the heck they are saying. But like I said it works both ways.