Are there any easy hacks for Language problems?

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

If you don't want to throw in unreadables, find one or two common errors a second language speaker might make when using English.
For example, Hungarians often mix up he/she as they don't have gender in their pronouns. Hungarians also don't have many prepositions and often omit or mix up English ones). Spanish speaker might put phrases in a different order....

There's a character in one of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin novels who always says "I find" instead of "I think" when she talks to the narrator in English. I don't know the exact reason for that, but it's a nice detail.

 

[Swank]

There are times when I want to replace the dialogue with they argued over what to have for breakfast so there's no way I'd waste word-count on a bunch of gibberish.

You should. No one wants to read bickering. Dialogue is for impact and actors.

 

[Harpo]

Hungarians often mix up he/she as they don't have gender in their pronouns. Hungarians also don't have many prepositions and often omit or mix up English ones).

 

[Abernovo]

I dunno, does the average reader care about the nuances of language-drift and how a bilingual character's thoughts are shaped by translations, or can I just be an idiot about it and be forgiven?

As sknox says, there is no such thing as an average reader. And, to quote Toby Frost, just write it.

For myself, and please don't take this amiss, I have more than one language, and I code switch a lot. People's thoughts are not simply shaped by the language, but by the culture in which the language lives. Lose that, and you'd lose me. But that's me.

So, I'd echo Wayne Mack in saying that if it doesn't interest you, then you don't have to write it. You're not being an idiot for bypassing linguistic differences if that's not the story you want to tell. Just make it a bit better than some of the early Star Trek universal translator scenes! You can always have (should have) different characters with different speech patterns, reflecting their thought processes and personalities.

Write it for now. You can edit it, and improve it, later. Finally, welcome to the Chrons.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

I find inventing languages really tedious too. Even coming up with a good character name is difficult. Sometimes I think of a cool sounding alien name and then google it and discover its Arabic for vacuum cleaner (or something like that). Then its back to the drawing board.

I'm amazed I got here first, but google translate tells me that maknasat kahrabayiya is Arabic for Vacuum Cleaner and yes, that is a cool alien name.

 

[sknox]

As the wise philosopher never said,
It's a vacuum. It doesn't need cleaning.