‘Kaspar! Makan!’ These are the first words of Conrad's first novel, Almayer's Folly, and this chapter seeks to explore what the Romanised print form of these words reveals about the timing and spacing of Conrad's English. Famously, of course, these opening words are not in English. Almayer's wife is here calling Almayer, by his Christian name Kaspar, to come to dinner – makan – meaning ‘to eat’ in Malay. Conrad's first published words might be considered the first example of what Ian Watt has called ‘delayed decoding’ in Conrad. It takes at least eight pages before the gist of Mrs Almayer's address is translated into English: ‘He had a hazy recollection of having been called some time during the evening by his wife. To his dinner probably.’ This delayed translation of Malay into English sets a pattern for things to come: for the plot of Almayer's Folly; for the long-delayed completion of the Malay trilogy that frames Conrad's entire writing career; and, too, for successive critical attempts to understand and explain the significance of Conrad's decision to write in English. To the extent that the future of Conrad's English turns on this delayed translation-effect, it is worth noting that Mrs Almayer's words will never – perhaps can never – fully be translated into English. Like the later, more famous problem of translation between Malay and English that gives the title to Lord Jim, which I will discuss later, the opening words of Almayer's Folly set up a dialogic exchange between Malay and English that is at least as lopsided, uneven and difficult as the relationship between Mrs Almayer and her husband. Conrad's English is, from the start, translinguistic, but not all languages are equal. The timing and spacing of Conrad's English turn on a hierarchy of hegemonic relations between languages. One of the key things controlling this hierarchy is romanisation: the transcription, transliteration and translation of linguistic exchange into the Romanised print form of English.