Writing Historical Fiction

Chapter 2: Using Foreign Language to Great Effect

      Personally, I speak German a lot in casual conversation, albeit, limited to basically,"Mein Gott!", "dummkopf!", and "SCHEISSE!". That way, it doesn't take a bilingual person to converse with me on any level.
       Now, using foreign language to great effect, is not that hard. In Teufelslied: Britannia, several of the German soldiers (unnamed or otherwise), shout to each other in their native language on several occasions.
      This, makes since. Because at their most foreign, at least, foreign compared to Germany. They're English Waffen-SS volunteers. In the 1940's, no less, where speaking German was about as common as speaking Arabic is today in America. If not more so, for stupid reasons that I can't really wrap my head around, but even at that minuscule level, at least the language isn't extinct.
       But if you have some Canadian high school girl, or even worse, an American girl, that inserts words like "senpai" and "kawaii", in casual speech, immediately after the Japanese bombed the shit out of Pearl Harbor, then you's gotsa problems (bad grammar is for humor, I am sorry).
       That is, unless she's in an internment camp, then which, hey, I'm fine.
        Then again, in case of a situation like that, REFER TO CHAPTER 1. She should not worship the Americans as her saviors.