You guys are always who I come to when I have a writing dilemma.
So one of my newest concerns is with language. I'm writing a book that takes place in Paris. There are French, German, and English speaking characters. However, some of the French speakers can understand English while some of the German speakers can understand French and so on. I had initially written all of the dialogue in English and only translated it into French or German to infer urgency or to direct attention to curtain situations. My question is should I, as a writer and a reader, assume that even if the dialogue is written in English that it is still meant to be in another language, or is it alright to assume that all of these people can speak English and do speak English a lot of the time?
I should also mention that all of the primary characters are part of a kind of overseas special tasks unit. This means that they deal with the same kind of dilemmas that our FBI might deal with and they would have to be able to communicate with people from other nations easily.
I realize that this is a simple decision that I as the author should be able to make, but for some reason it just feels bizarre switching back and forth between French and English dialogue.
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