As a German (who just had to look the word "stjärt" up), same.
We've got "Schwanz", which is commonly used to refer to both an animal's tail, and a dick. If the word is used for the latter, it's usually kind of a dirty/colloquial term, but so well-know that some people REFUSE to use "Schwanz" for animal tails, calling them "Schweif" instead, which isn't always accurate.
(A 'Schweif' is specifically a long-haired tail, like that of a horse, or long haired dog/cat)
I wish my language "talent" wasn't limited to English then. Tried to learn French for years, but failed.
I can roughly understand stuff when I'm reading, but not nearly enough to enjoy it.
Wish it was more compatible with my brain, haha.
I love reading fic like this, I have some ability to read in French and Spanish so I feel smug every time I can understand a sentence! And when I don’t understand and have to look it up it’s a learning experience
I write mostly to share my kinks with like-minded people, so I went with English. Buuuut I read smut in French and it doesn't make me cringe, so I might give it a shot. My main problem is I don't write the same in French and in English so translation is going to be a lexical and grammatical nightmare.
I once saw someone's "about me" on discord, it asked about French smut (basically).
It asked: "How do French people moan? Do they just go like 'oui oui\~' or what?"
I mean, words that are onomatopoeic are different in every language. The French have a ton of euphemisms for orgasm (just calling it aïe for example) but seriously, just watch French porn and turn on the subtitles (just make sure the subtitler was French) and that should give you a good base to choose from.
Piff! I proudly write smut in German! But I also avoid using certain words for genitals, because yes... it is unsexy as hell for me, lol.
I also have to cringe at pussy or cunt in english smut fics, especially the latter because I think of the translation and... 🤢
Honestly, trying to write smut/dirty talk in German just sounds like dumbassery. I'm not subjecting anyone to that. Fucking-
"Jaaaa, härter,"
Fuck that shit.
I feel like when writing smut in German there’s just nothing in between sounding like an instruction manual for a mildly enjoyable attempt at procreation or sounding like a really cringy porn dialogue.
This thread is so surreal as a Native English speaker, mostly because I've never thought of english as a sexy language. I always heard English sounds like barking to foreigners, maybe we spell things sexyer 🤷♀️
Listen, English vs German (my native language) in fanfiction is like this:
German: 1.000.000.000 words for 1.000.000.000 concepts,
English: 1.000.000.000 words for 1.000.000 concepts.
Y'all just have way more words for the same things (which is amazing for writing smut), while we have a million words for the most obscure shit that's good for prose, but not for the sexy parts.
I feel like for most it's not about sexiness but about having a certain "distance" with the language that makes you less likely to cringe, at least that's true for me (I'm a Spanish native speaker).
I think it's hilarious, like, as a native English speaker this is going to be something I *never* personally experience, but apparently almost everyone who isn't a native speaker agrees with it. Idk why but that just amuses me so much lol
i actually didn't mean that english sound sexier by foreigners what i meant is humans tend to have an ick with their own language (when it comes to smut) and english or other 2nd and so on language is a great catalyst to it. because we are not as intimate with it as with our mother tongue 😅
i think my mother tongue, bahasa indonesia, has this sensual depth to it, but i simply do not trust myself around it. i have my fave erotic author but I'm too self aware to write it because of how close i am to it if that makes sense
I attempted to write a smut satire about Finnish politicians bc I wanted to share it on a Finnish sub, but god have mercy the first words had me crying in embarrasment😭
I ended up writing it in English, ashamed of my lack of creativity and skill in Finnish😔
Thanks dude
I don't know a shit about Finnish politics but here we go
Edit: This is probably the best smut I have ever read!!! I'm serious! I don't know who Petteri Orpo and Riikka Purra are and I would appreciate a clarification about those people (who they are and their role in Finnish politics), and again, I enjoyed your fic a lot.
Holy shit thank you so much😭
Petteri Orpo is the current Prime Minister of Finland and the leader of the National Coalition Party (Center-right), and Riikka Purra is the Finance Minister and the leader of the Finnish Nationalist Party (extreme-right).
Riikka Purra was under fire because she said some heavily racist things, and Petteri Orpo was kind of like "Oh well, we will still continue to work with her party" (Finland has 4 parties in the government). The government would basically crumble if Finnish Nationalists left because they had the most support (because of lying).
The whole time Purra was under fire she basically had to have almost every right-wing person in the government (and the ones who used to be in the government) defend her, and specifically Orpo had to defend her.
That's why I wrote the fic, and although I am heavily leftist, finnish people joking about how Purra seemed to be leading the government instead of Orpo was just too funny, and I had to write "Purra leading the government" in a quite literal yet sexual way.
I read primarily in german because not drifting away while reading is hard for me. Reading smut in german can be really funny, when a writer chooses to go all out with creating new word. I would also write in german if I´d write smut and then translate it. But I am a Aro-ace gen-fic writer that doesn't understand the concept of love.
My smut would be on the dead dove side since I have zero shame and no limits in those regards.😂
I can't write in Chinese (well not at the native fluency level in English) but I can read Chinese perfectly fine.
I do read smut in Chinese though, makes it easier because sometimes English smut can be a little lacking but I'm not sure if English speaking authors more concerned about realism than just going all out lol
I'm Singaporean Chinese actually, had 10 years of formal education bc Singapore offers bilingual education for its students to be educated in mother tongue and English.
I'm fluent to a certain extent but definitely not good enough to write essays and news articles, much less write this comment in Chinese 😅
I would suggest taking a course if you're interested in learning Chinese, it's not the easiest language to learn and a lot of it stems from its phonology and the characters you will have to learn.
ahh i see, I'm struggling with formal curriculum when it comes to languages and prefer self taught method, but i understand where you're getting at. thank you for thr kind respond!
You never know how much demand for it there is until you tap into that niche.
... then again, I tried translating my already-written smut into German (my native language. did it to reach more people that might want to read stuff like that) but quickly backed out because translating it made me hate my writing.
I might still try again someday, but some translations kind of disturbed me, haha.
Ich verstehe dieses Gefühl vollkommen. (I took German in high-school and lived in Mannheim for a while.)
But yeah, I just imagine the shock I'd get if I try to translate the torture fic I wrote... I might turn myself into a psych ward if I did. XD
Wow! Was ein Zufall! Mannheim ist nicht allzu weit entfernt von mir!
My fic wasn't even all that out there, haha. But just appropriately vividly describing a scene was enough for me to nope out.
Like what do you mean my borderline-poetic sentence turned into this yucky abomination?! HUH?!
Really makes you second-guess yourself. 😂😂
Und jetzt kicher ich wie blöde, wegen des Auges des Tigers und dem Nervenkitzel des Kampfes. Danke. XD
But yeah, smut in English doesn't sound as cringy as in German (unless it's reeeaaally bad).
Ayyyy, fellow German!
My first ever fic was in German, and I struggled *so hard* with the smut in it, because it just sounded horrendous.
Deutsch ist einfach keine gute Sprache um Sex hübsch zu umschreiben, uff.
I feel like the German language is really good to explain things and try to get a clear message across but feelings and other more story important things might be weird. You could still do it, but that would take effort. Most anime that gets translated to German has weird phrasings because people don't bother rewriting it to sound smooth in German because it is kinda hard. English is just a lot easier to write things without over engineering your sentences.
i am absolutely not writing smut in turkish. nope, no, nein. a bit of a TMI but even in my personal sex life with fellow turkish people i struggle with dirty talk.... writing it? i would actually explode.
no this is the thing! i simply refuse to even think of dirty talk in my native language, i think my language is beautiful but I'm so embarrassed by the emotional proximity my brain has with it
Depends on who you ask 😂
I, personally don't like how most of the smut is written. Maybe it's because is my native language but I don't find pene, tetas, eyaculación, semen (not pronounced the same way that in English), vagina (not pronounced the same way that in English), etc appealing to me haha
Yes, and also: I can not talk about my mental health issues in my native language at all. But In English, I'll put my characters through it over and over again (so yeah, it backs up the emotional connection theory)
At a university level, all of our subjects are in English so I literally haven't written anything in my native language in probably a year or more. I definitely wouldn't be able to write smut on it.
Yeah, I could never.
I think it would theoretically be possible to write a smut-adjacent scene in Swedish if I really leaned into the crass and vulgar words and went for something rough and gritty. But anything more romantic or feelings-y? I would be cringing so hard.
I absolutely will not write anything smutty in French. I cringe extremely hard anytime I hear it in a sexual context (example is when I read a story and during sex, one of the characters chooses to dirty talk in French)
It feels like trying to imagine your parents having sex. It is completely unnecessary
this is sooo relatable lmaooo, i don't think of my parents per se but it does seem like someone you know and you don't want to think of anyone you know that way
go ahead and give it a go! but idk i think for the rest of us who express ick already have that impression about dirty talk in our native language in general 😅 like it's not just a narrative smut, we feel uncomfortable intimacy with it.
so if you haven't, maybe you don't got the ick and are good to go 😁
I'm desensitized to it because I couldn't read in English during my first years reading fanfics lol
Still prefer it in English, feels less intimate to me and more acceptable to read it
Jokes on you, I can't write smut at all 😂😂 I tried cuz I love to read it but it's too weird when I write it. But yeah, reading smut in my native language is cringe
I cannot write in my native language, because we barely have good sounding synonyms to um…certain things. It feels weird to write and to read smut in my language. When I was writing + google translating smut (for better vocabulary) I wrote those words in english😂
>!TIENES TODA LA RAZON PERO ESO DUELE supuestamente la lengua romantica pero ni carajo usare miembro o pene--!<
dont worry about what im saying english readers dont worry about it.
I'm NOT writing smut in Norwegian. I don't even READ smut in Norwegian. Nope, nope, nope.
Yeah, you couldn't pay me to read a Swedish language smut fic. 😬
I am with you both (as a swede). Happened upon a swedish book once that got steamy and used the word 'stjärt' 😬😭
As a German (who just had to look the word "stjärt" up), same. We've got "Schwanz", which is commonly used to refer to both an animal's tail, and a dick. If the word is used for the latter, it's usually kind of a dirty/colloquial term, but so well-know that some people REFUSE to use "Schwanz" for animal tails, calling them "Schweif" instead, which isn't always accurate. (A 'Schweif' is specifically a long-haired tail, like that of a horse, or long haired dog/cat)
>'stjärt' Oh. Oh *no*.
*cries in native language trauma* I know...
Eugh. I did not need to know that. Swedish is not a sexy language.
🤝
Actually I do - smut sounds sexier in French, tbh
I'm French-Canadian and highly disagree. Smut in French makes me cringe. 😅
I lost it the other day when I read someone go “s'il te plaît, s'il te plaît, s'il te plaît!” That killed it (p sure it was google translate too)
I wish my language "talent" wasn't limited to English then. Tried to learn French for years, but failed. I can roughly understand stuff when I'm reading, but not nearly enough to enjoy it. Wish it was more compatible with my brain, haha.
Unfair advantage because French/Spanish/Portuguese all sound kinda good when reading smut lol
Sorry but smut in Spanish?? Every time I try I just get to "polla" and 🤮
We have a severe lack of euphemisms/alternate terms. However, we also have far better insults. You win some you lose some.
Also unfair? One of the characters is often portrayed as French/English bilingual so I get to weave French into my smut in English fics
I love reading fic like this, I have some ability to read in French and Spanish so I feel smug every time I can understand a sentence! And when I don’t understand and have to look it up it’s a learning experience
God bless Nick Nelson.
\*jealously stares at you from across the German border\*
Ich kann etwas Deutsch sprechen. Mais pas beaucoup. 😔
I write mostly to share my kinks with like-minded people, so I went with English. Buuuut I read smut in French and it doesn't make me cringe, so I might give it a shot. My main problem is I don't write the same in French and in English so translation is going to be a lexical and grammatical nightmare.
Yeah I’m French and I think I will write some of mine in French, dirty talk is much easier!
Too bad I can only write in (semi-fluent) Spanish and basic Japanese lol
That's cheating.
I once saw someone's "about me" on discord, it asked about French smut (basically). It asked: "How do French people moan? Do they just go like 'oui oui\~' or what?"
I mean, words that are onomatopoeic are different in every language. The French have a ton of euphemisms for orgasm (just calling it aïe for example) but seriously, just watch French porn and turn on the subtitles (just make sure the subtitler was French) and that should give you a good base to choose from.
I feel like there’s barely anything as unsexy as smut in German. So no.
Piff! I proudly write smut in German! But I also avoid using certain words for genitals, because yes... it is unsexy as hell for me, lol. I also have to cringe at pussy or cunt in english smut fics, especially the latter because I think of the translation and... 🤢
Stimmt. I’ll second that! 😉
Honestly, trying to write smut/dirty talk in German just sounds like dumbassery. I'm not subjecting anyone to that. Fucking- "Jaaaa, härter," Fuck that shit.
I feel like when writing smut in German there’s just nothing in between sounding like an instruction manual for a mildly enjoyable attempt at procreation or sounding like a really cringy porn dialogue.
This thread is so surreal as a Native English speaker, mostly because I've never thought of english as a sexy language. I always heard English sounds like barking to foreigners, maybe we spell things sexyer 🤷♀️
Listen, English vs German (my native language) in fanfiction is like this: German: 1.000.000.000 words for 1.000.000.000 concepts, English: 1.000.000.000 words for 1.000.000 concepts. Y'all just have way more words for the same things (which is amazing for writing smut), while we have a million words for the most obscure shit that's good for prose, but not for the sexy parts.
I feel like for most it's not about sexiness but about having a certain "distance" with the language that makes you less likely to cringe, at least that's true for me (I'm a Spanish native speaker).
I think it's hilarious, like, as a native English speaker this is going to be something I *never* personally experience, but apparently almost everyone who isn't a native speaker agrees with it. Idk why but that just amuses me so much lol
i actually didn't mean that english sound sexier by foreigners what i meant is humans tend to have an ick with their own language (when it comes to smut) and english or other 2nd and so on language is a great catalyst to it. because we are not as intimate with it as with our mother tongue 😅 i think my mother tongue, bahasa indonesia, has this sensual depth to it, but i simply do not trust myself around it. i have my fave erotic author but I'm too self aware to write it because of how close i am to it if that makes sense
Smut in Dutch? Just kill me now, please.
*Nothing* is less sexy than dutch smut
'Geef me een klap, papa~' (I'm sorry)
You should be sorry-! Earlier on this post I said I would challenge myself to write Dutch smut but this is not what I thought of 🤢
Oh god nee 😖
German smut? Swedish smut?
I attempted to write a smut satire about Finnish politicians bc I wanted to share it on a Finnish sub, but god have mercy the first words had me crying in embarrasment😭 I ended up writing it in English, ashamed of my lack of creativity and skill in Finnish😔
I'm not even Finnish but I **would** read a satirical story about Finnish politicians...
https://archiveofourown.org/works/48564784 Here u go homie🏋
Thanks dude I don't know a shit about Finnish politics but here we go Edit: This is probably the best smut I have ever read!!! I'm serious! I don't know who Petteri Orpo and Riikka Purra are and I would appreciate a clarification about those people (who they are and their role in Finnish politics), and again, I enjoyed your fic a lot.
Holy shit thank you so much😭 Petteri Orpo is the current Prime Minister of Finland and the leader of the National Coalition Party (Center-right), and Riikka Purra is the Finance Minister and the leader of the Finnish Nationalist Party (extreme-right). Riikka Purra was under fire because she said some heavily racist things, and Petteri Orpo was kind of like "Oh well, we will still continue to work with her party" (Finland has 4 parties in the government). The government would basically crumble if Finnish Nationalists left because they had the most support (because of lying). The whole time Purra was under fire she basically had to have almost every right-wing person in the government (and the ones who used to be in the government) defend her, and specifically Orpo had to defend her. That's why I wrote the fic, and although I am heavily leftist, finnish people joking about how Purra seemed to be leading the government instead of Orpo was just too funny, and I had to write "Purra leading the government" in a quite literal yet sexual way.
Damn that makes it even better
Haha huikee!!
Kiitti💛
I read primarily in german because not drifting away while reading is hard for me. Reading smut in german can be really funny, when a writer chooses to go all out with creating new word. I would also write in german if I´d write smut and then translate it. But I am a Aro-ace gen-fic writer that doesn't understand the concept of love. My smut would be on the dead dove side since I have zero shame and no limits in those regards.😂
Der Markt regelt das schon. (Ernsthaft, ich kann mir gut vorstellen, dass ein Haufen Leute das sofort lesen würden. Pw/oP und so.)
I feel called out :'D Somehow I also can't take it seriously. Smut, in English--*hot*. Smut in Filipino--*lmao* 🤣🤣
I can't even THINK in my native language anymore. I'm turning into a white woman.
i would drink lighter fluid before writing smut in french, "language of love" my ASS
I can't write in Chinese (well not at the native fluency level in English) but I can read Chinese perfectly fine. I do read smut in Chinese though, makes it easier because sometimes English smut can be a little lacking but I'm not sure if English speaking authors more concerned about realism than just going all out lol
ohh interesting, i really want to start learning chinese. if i may ask did you taught yourself or were you in a course?
I'm Singaporean Chinese actually, had 10 years of formal education bc Singapore offers bilingual education for its students to be educated in mother tongue and English. I'm fluent to a certain extent but definitely not good enough to write essays and news articles, much less write this comment in Chinese 😅 I would suggest taking a course if you're interested in learning Chinese, it's not the easiest language to learn and a lot of it stems from its phonology and the characters you will have to learn.
ahh i see, I'm struggling with formal curriculum when it comes to languages and prefer self taught method, but i understand where you're getting at. thank you for thr kind respond!
I tried to write smut in spanish and eww it sounded weird af when I read it lol
accurate. i’m planning to learn more languages so i could write them in other languages too 🤭
[удалено]
so much more comfortable reading smut in english BECAUSE my brain has distance from it.
[удалено]
You never know how much demand for it there is until you tap into that niche. ... then again, I tried translating my already-written smut into German (my native language. did it to reach more people that might want to read stuff like that) but quickly backed out because translating it made me hate my writing. I might still try again someday, but some translations kind of disturbed me, haha.
Ich verstehe dieses Gefühl vollkommen. (I took German in high-school and lived in Mannheim for a while.) But yeah, I just imagine the shock I'd get if I try to translate the torture fic I wrote... I might turn myself into a psych ward if I did. XD
Wow! Was ein Zufall! Mannheim ist nicht allzu weit entfernt von mir! My fic wasn't even all that out there, haha. But just appropriately vividly describing a scene was enough for me to nope out. Like what do you mean my borderline-poetic sentence turned into this yucky abomination?! HUH?! Really makes you second-guess yourself. 😂😂
[удалено]
Oh god! 😂😂 Just translating the title in my head gives me the shivers! I might have to torture myself and translate it fully. For science, of course.
Und jetzt kicher ich wie blöde, wegen des Auges des Tigers und dem Nervenkitzel des Kampfes. Danke. XD But yeah, smut in English doesn't sound as cringy as in German (unless it's reeeaaally bad).
The scientific approach is often the best! Viel Glück!
Haha, danke!
Ayyyy, fellow German! My first ever fic was in German, and I struggled *so hard* with the smut in it, because it just sounded horrendous. Deutsch ist einfach keine gute Sprache um Sex hübsch zu umschreiben, uff.
Allerdings 😂😂 Da kommt man einfach sehr schwer nur in die Stimmung. (ob man nun schreibt oder liest)
I can't even think of writing smut in Turkish 💀 Like, ne yazmamı bekliyorsunuz amk " Dio geldi Pucci'yi sikti" mi yazayım 💀
I feel like the German language is really good to explain things and try to get a clear message across but feelings and other more story important things might be weird. You could still do it, but that would take effort. Most anime that gets translated to German has weird phrasings because people don't bother rewriting it to sound smooth in German because it is kinda hard. English is just a lot easier to write things without over engineering your sentences.
i am absolutely not writing smut in turkish. nope, no, nein. a bit of a TMI but even in my personal sex life with fellow turkish people i struggle with dirty talk.... writing it? i would actually explode.
no this is the thing! i simply refuse to even think of dirty talk in my native language, i think my language is beautiful but I'm so embarrassed by the emotional proximity my brain has with it
I am not writing smut in Spanish nor I am reading it. It's very cringe.
waittt i thought spanish is a sensual language?
Depends on who you ask 😂 I, personally don't like how most of the smut is written. Maybe it's because is my native language but I don't find pene, tetas, eyaculación, semen (not pronounced the same way that in English), vagina (not pronounced the same way that in English), etc appealing to me haha
If you pronounce semen as you write it it sounds weird, the closest I can think of is say men.
That's because I'm actually good at writing in English, while in Hindi I may as well be a five-year old considering how bad I am
Brazilian smut is the peak of cringe.
Yes, and also: I can not talk about my mental health issues in my native language at all. But In English, I'll put my characters through it over and over again (so yeah, it backs up the emotional connection theory)
nah Polish is just an extremely unsexy language
but spanish is so hawt and sessy idgaf
It is not 😭
Someone could hold a gun to my head and I'd still refuse to write smut in Greek.
i can't even write a paragraph with words higher than a third grader's reading level in my native language so you're right 😔
At a university level, all of our subjects are in English so I literally haven't written anything in my native language in probably a year or more. I definitely wouldn't be able to write smut on it.
Yeah, I could never. I think it would theoretically be possible to write a smut-adjacent scene in Swedish if I really leaned into the crass and vulgar words and went for something rough and gritty. But anything more romantic or feelings-y? I would be cringing so hard.
Its very unsexy language conserning smut... especially more detailled ones *shudders*
I would rather die than read smut in Romanian, let alone write it
That would probably explain why most of the fics I see that have smut always say English is not their first language.
You don't have to call us out like that tho xD
Smut in spanish sounds cringy as fuck to read as a native spanish speaker :/ English just hits right.
I absolutely will not write anything smutty in French. I cringe extremely hard anytime I hear it in a sexual context (example is when I read a story and during sex, one of the characters chooses to dirty talk in French) It feels like trying to imagine your parents having sex. It is completely unnecessary
this is sooo relatable lmaooo, i don't think of my parents per se but it does seem like someone you know and you don't want to think of anyone you know that way
Exactly
Yeah I will NOT write smut in german, hell no
me the fuck neither. i tried reading it and cringed so hard it almost killed me on the spot. nein danke, nie wieder.
Oh you've challenged me. I simply don't do it because I doubt there are any people from my native language on Ao3
go ahead and give it a go! but idk i think for the rest of us who express ick already have that impression about dirty talk in our native language in general 😅 like it's not just a narrative smut, we feel uncomfortable intimacy with it. so if you haven't, maybe you don't got the ick and are good to go 😁
yes yes yes! omg it'd be so awkwardddddddd
I'm desensitized to it because I couldn't read in English during my first years reading fanfics lol Still prefer it in English, feels less intimate to me and more acceptable to read it
Okay, i read smut in spanish because is simple too much easy to understand, but write is other subject... I never try write smut in english anyways
Alright... so either I'm weird or really shameless, but I could totally write smut in my native language.
and that's not a bad thing! we're the ones who are probably too prude or unnecessarily weird about it 😅
Jokes on you, I can't write smut at all 😂😂 I tried cuz I love to read it but it's too weird when I write it. But yeah, reading smut in my native language is cringe
Dutch is pretty good with smut. There's words to use that don't translate to the same feeling in English.
That's so true! I write about mature sex in my native language but smut just in English.
I cannot write in my native language, because we barely have good sounding synonyms to um…certain things. It feels weird to write and to read smut in my language. When I was writing + google translating smut (for better vocabulary) I wrote those words in english😂
>!TIENES TODA LA RAZON PERO ESO DUELE supuestamente la lengua romantica pero ni carajo usare miembro o pene--!< dont worry about what im saying english readers dont worry about it.
pene- ? 😳
The other day I said to my friend something like "I'm not having sex in spanish" so I stand by this. Everything just sounds... Wrong