How Do You Say...?

Pretty much a Stock Phrase for any Funny Foreigner. Commonly used either to hang a lampshade on how he doesn't speak English too well or with swearing to create a Sophisticated As Hell effect.

Ironically, it is usually used to show that the character isn't very fluent in English, but after the "How you say..." line, the character often uses an overly sophisticated sentence.

Sometimes rendered as "how you say" instead of "how do you say". Can lead to Buffy-Speak. Another variant is to use it before an idiom, occasionally a... qu'est-ce qu'on dit... "Totally Radical" idiom. See Language Equals Thought if something along the lines of "my language, she has no word for this" comes up.

It is obviously... ¿cómo se dice..? "Truth in Television". No Real Life examples, please, I'm sure we've all met native French speakers before.

Documentary
"Francesco: To travel through Sicily is to travel through time. I feel like your British Time Lord - how do you say? Doctor... what?"
 * Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe

Film
"Ludivine Duflot: Almost all French aristocrat have, how you say... liaison with their cousins, yes?"
 * A Good Year

"Eduardo Marques: You are, how you say, the queer couple?"
 * Blame It on Rio

"Prof. Anna Vrooshka: You see, I am keeping a, how you say, a dirrrty caravan."
 * Carry On Behind

"Heinz, the Baron Krauss von Espy: She spe-cif-i-cated a man with a wandering pee-pee. How you say? A philanderer whose affairs would be transparent to the world."
 * Intolerable Cruelty

"Doña Dolores: I don't trust him, never did. He is a... how you say in America?
 * Scooby Doo! and the Monster of Mexico

Fred: Crook?

Daphne: Liar?

Velma: Con man?

Doña Dolores: [waits a beat] Jerk!"

"Christina: I learn much this weekend Terry, it has been, how you say in English, an eyesore."
 * The Likely Lads

"Gianni: Perhaps I can help you! What part are you a little... how you say, "thick" on?"
 * Transporter 2

"Spider: We are in the middle of the, how do you say, the big puddle.
 * James and The Giant Peach

Centipede: Biggest puddle of 'em all, angel fangs ? the Atlantic Ocean."

"Penny: What makes you wanna talk to her?
 * The Book of Stars, talking about a hypothetical date:

Kristjan: Oh, I would come to her because she's lovely and how do you say, um, mysterious."

"Ducoit: Well, Monsieur Rivers, it seems that you have become, how do you say, indispensable?
 * Parodied in Top Secret:

Nick: "Indispensable."

Ducoit: That's what I thought."

Literature

 * Hercule Poirot is, of course, very fond of this phrase as part of his Funny Foreigner routine.

Live Action TV
"Payroll Sgt. Zach Zachariades: A legionnaire in love is, how you say, like a starving man looking in the window of a delicatessen store. He cannot touch what he's crazy to have."
 * Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion (1955) episode "Rodeo":

"Katrina Karpov: How you say? Take off all your clothing?"
 * The A-Team episode "The A-Team Is Coming, the A-Team Is Coming":

"Marcello: And the count is, how you say in Englese? Eh, a semi-psychotic paranoid introvert."
 * The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episode "Barcelona, May 1917":

"Premier Dubienkin: We like, how you say, kick them in the balls."
 * Whoops Apocalypse:


 * The "How Do You Say? Ah, Yes." Show with Antonio Banderas.
 * Parodied on the US version of The Office where Michael thought it was necessary to say "How you say?" to a perfectly English-fluent and non-French Canadian woman under the basis of her being "foreign".
 * In Get Smart, a staple of Hawaiian detective Harry Hou's dialogue. As Max is providing the desired word, it's of course never the correct one.

Theatre
"You like my hair, yes? My lips, yes?
 * "Come Play Wiz Me" from Anyone Can Whistle:

Ze sway of my, how you say, of my hips, yes?...

I like your, how you say, imperturbable perspicacity.

It isn't how you say, it's what you see!"

Video Games
"Fernando: And you realize this is, how you say, a metaphor for the first sexual experience."
 * Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories:


 * In Starcraft, Fenix asserts that despite his age (and robotic body) he can still, "How do you Terrans say, 'throw down with the best of them'!" Which is goddamn hilarious coming from a Protoss.

Web Original
"Amir: Don't be a, how you say, hero!
 * Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series has the Borat Expy use the Sophisticated As Hell version to say that he is "How do you say, kind of a dick."
 * Poked fun at with Amir in Hardly Working's Airplane:

Dan: YOU KNOW HOW TO SAY IT!"

Western Animation
"Horst: I must have phrased that bad. My English is, how you say, inelegant."
 * The Simpsons episode "Burns Verkauft der Kraftwerk":

"Linka: See? We found the correct cave ? how do you say ? right off the bat?"
 * Of course, part of the hilarity is that he's actually speaking grammatically (if not phonetically) flawless English.
 * Captain Planet and The Planeteers episode "Isle of Solar Energy":

"Monique: We will, how you say, throw a monkey wrench in the works?
 * Used frequently in Godzilla the Series with the native Frenchwoman of the team, Monique, even though her English is competent and avoids Blunt Metaphors Trauma. Memorably inverted once with (paraphrasing):

Nick: In English, we call it 'sabotage'."

"Lana: "You knew this whole time?"
 * Archer: At the beginning of the pilot episode, Archer is interrogated by a Russian with a bad accent, who tells Archer that capturing him "is for us, how you say... a good get."
 * Also used by the villian, Scorpio, in a later episode:

Scorpio: "How you say... wahh wahh.""

""Go... how do you say it... away.""
 * Courage the Cowardly Dog uses this for Le Quack, a French criminal duck.

"Antoine: Princess, I hate to be a, how you say, worryworm..."
 * Antoine from Sonic Sat AM.