title: Issue with Non-ASCII characters when using LINQ-to-Entities
body: <p>I've got an issue with saving non-ASCII characters in my database. Now I know that are a lot of questions here about similar problems but I've done my research and I'm stuck. I also know that there's the issue of the COLLATE setting in the database, but mine is correct. What I have is a very strange problem.</p>
  
  <p>I have a function that's automatically being run which saves retrieved words into the database using LINQ. Some of these words contain non-ASCII characters such as (ċ, ħ, ġ and ż). I realised I had this problem when I looked at my database and saw that some words had characters (such as those I listed above) changed to ASCII letters. I found this weird as I had already worked on a project where I was saving non-ASCII characters through a web form with no problems at all. The only difference here is that the words are not being inputted through a web form.</p>
  
  <p>So overall the weird thing is: when non-ASCII characters are passed from a web from and saved on the database (using LINQ) these characters are saved. When the same strings and parameters are written into an SQL statement and run the non-ASCII characters are not saved. I don't understand what's going on. I've tried using:</p>
  
  <pre><code>    System.Data.Objects.EntityFunctions.AsNonUnicode([word])
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>but it didn't work. I've also tested the N prefix in an SQL statement and that did work. </p>
  
  <pre><code>UPDATE tblWords
      SET Word = N'żabbar'
      WHERE ID = 19061
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Since I'm in my application I'm using LINQ-to-Entities, I'm wondering whether there's anyway an N prefix could be inserted using LINQ, cause that's the only way I managed to save non-ASCII characters.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance!</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT:</strong> Ok, apparently what I meant was Non-ASCII not Non-Unicode characters, sorry for the confusion</p>