Bilingual Backfire: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

When two characters talk about someone else who is present in a language the third party supposedly doesn't speak, and the third party turns out to speak that language ''just fine'', it's a '''Bilingual Backfire'''.

 

{{examples}}

* An ad for... [[What Were They Selling Again?|something]] had two women in a café discussing a rather good-looking man at their table in Irish. Turned out he also spoke the language.

* There was a Swedish Army commercial, shown in Britain on ''Tarrant on TV'', in which two Army recruits sit on a park bench and tap out sexist remarks about a passing girl in Morse code. Guess what—she taps out a snappy comeback on a nearby lamp post. Yes, there are women in the Army too.

* A 2012 ad for Honda is set in a dealership. The customers start speaking subtitled Chinese (probably so the salesman won't know how much they want the car). They switch to English to tell him they'll take it. He tells them in Chinese to follow him and they'll start the paperwork.

 

* In ''Astonishing [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'', [[X-Men/Characters/2000s Members|Hisako]] is training with [[Wolverine]] and the session goes badly:

{{quote|'''Hisako:''' It's shameful that a killer gorilla passes as a teacher here.

* In ''[[X-23]]'', [[Tyke Bomb|Laura's]] martial arts tutor spends their lessons talking to her like a normal human being when not speaking English, in direct contrast to his superior's wishes. After this goes on for some time, his superior demonstrates he also knows the language the instructor is using and {{spoiler|forces Laura to kill him.}}

 

* In ''[[Black Crayons]]'', Ironhide begins teaching Annabelle some basics about how to speak Cybertronian. [[Chekhov's Skill|This allows her to listen in and participate on a few conversations she wasn't supposed to understand.]] This includes Skid and Mudflap's plans to pull a prank on Ironhide, {{spoiler|use the universal greeting on Barricade, and hear a critical conversation about a traitor in the Autobot's midst}}.

 

'''Bully'''(also in Hindi): I know Hindi. A bit.

'''Prateek'''(in English): Oh crap }}

{{quote|'''David Bouchard:''' ''(surprised)'' Tu parles français? [You speak French?]

'''Martin Ward:''' Non, je ne parle pas français. Je me suis fait installer un gadget au cerveau and I see subtitles under people when they speak. [No, I don't speak French. I had a gadget installed in my brain et je vois des sous-titres sous les gens quand ils parlent.] }}

{{quote|... and I haven't had sex in forever...

Forever is a very long time. }}

* In ''[[The Love Bug]]'', Tennessee speaks to Mr. Wu in Chinese ([[As Long as It Sounds Foreign|or an approximation of it]]), and Jim asks Tennessee to ask Mr. Wu if he would let him drive Herbie in the El Dorado race, with the condition that Mr. Wu will keep the winnings. This prompts Mr. Wu to say, in English, "Now you speak my language!".

* In ''What's Cooking'', a film about four families on one street corner at thanksgiving, the Hispanic family are introduced to the Vietnamese boyfriend of the daughter. While fetching down a high up dish in the kitchen, all the female relatives compliment his 'looks', and are very embarrassed when he turns out to speak perfect Spanish.

 

* In ''[[Conqueror|Lords of the Bow]]'', Chen Yi provides transport to Khasar, Temuge, and Ho Sa. Chen Yi puts up a pretense of only speaking Chinese, but when they get to his house and the travellers begin discussing how to deal with him, he decides to reveal that he also speaks decent Mongolian.

* ''Me Talk Pretty One Day'' by David Sedaris has a story about this. Sedaris is an American expat living in France, and while he's on the Paris subway an American tourist starts talking about him to his (the tourist's) girlfriend, saying that he smells bad and telling her that he is a pickpocket. At one point he tells his girlfriend that the man Sedaris was with was his partner for theft; the man is Sedaris's boyfriend. Sedaris never confronts them - he just spreads the worldwide.

* There's a ''[[CSI: NY]]'' tie in novel where Lindsay and Stella are processing a scene at a bakery, and the owner uses a derrogatory Italian term for a female cop. What he doesn't realize is that Stella speaks some Italian, and though she's rusty, she knows exactly what he's saying.

 

* A kind of example from ''[[ER]]'': A eldery Chinese woman shows up with a serious illness that is quickly identified as symptoms from a brain tumor. It turns out that her son and daughter-in-law already know this, but are keeping it from his mother since they thought it would kill her. The doctor disagrees, but their argument quickly becomes a moot-point since they argued in front of the mother and "Cancer" tends to mean the same thing in all languages.

* ''Ros na Rún'' once had an Indian character who spoke primarily in English, while two of the women had a rather insulting conversation about him in Irish. Turns out he spoke Irish pretty well.

* A variant in the [[Republic of Doyle]] episode "Mirror, Mirror". Several scenes establish that Jake Doyle doesn't speak French. At the end of the episode, love interest Sgt Leslie Bennett claims that a francophone police officer isn't her type, then switches to French to say {{spoiler|that Jake is her man}}. Jake asks her what she said, and adds "You know I don't speak French." Bennett refuses to translate and leaves. After Bennett is gone, {{spoiler|Jake says, in French, that she is also the one for him}}.

 

* Wee Papa Girl Rappers' 1988 hit "Wee Rule" mentions the narrator being insulted and sworn at in French by somone who doesn't know she's "passed exams in French".

 

* Joseph does this to his brothers in [[The Bible]]. They don't recognize him, so he speaks Egyptian to them through an interpreter even though he knows what they are saying.

 

== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==

* Believe it or not, there was actually a feud based around the Bilingual Backfire; there was a brief period of time where [[WWE/Characters/Divas|WWE]] champion Maryse would come up to [[Gail Kim]] and talk about how great a wrestler she is and how she respects her, etc., and then say something in French. This went on for a few weeks until Kim attacked Maryse, revealed she was fluent in French, and knew the entire time that Maryse was trash-talking her to her face.

 

* Ventriloquist [[Jeff Dunham]] does an odd play on this. At one point his puppets Peanut and Jose Jalepeno on a [[Funetik Aksent|Steek]] begin conversing with one another in Spanish. Jeff complains to them that ''he'' doesn't speak Spanish. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by the puppets when Jose begins singing ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' theme and Peanut remarks "Picture if you will..."

* Henry Cho (a Korean-American comedian from Tennessee) has a routine about how he went to South Korea on vacation and was approached by another American tourist who asks him, "IS THIS THE BUS-Y THAT GOES-Y DOWN-Y TOWN-Y?!" Response: "[[Deep South|I reckon so]]. So, what's yer name...?"

 

* In the first scene of ''[[The King and I]]'', the kralahome initially speaks to Anna through an interpreter; however, when she refuses to be treated as a doormat, he starts speaking in perfect English. Apparently he just wanted to mess with her.

* Happened on the ''Nuits De Paris'' sketch of ''[[Les Luthiers]]'' with French.

* Larry Shue's play ''The Foreigner'' is made of this trope. A tourist pretends to be a foreigner who doesn't speak English so he doesn't have to have small talk conversations with others. Since he doesn't speak English, people have various conversations in front of him which eventually reveals a plot to drive the owner of the lodge out and use the place for KKK meetings.

 

* A number of NPCs from [[Teeth-Clenched Teamwork|rival but allied factions]] in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' have a long, repeating argument in Netherstorm. At one point one of the blood elves mutters something in her own language that one of the draenei says she understood:

{{quote|'''Magistrix Larynna:''' ''(in Thalassian)'' Dor shar'adore da shando! [I'm [[Surrounded by Idiots]]!]

{{quote|"Mr. Armstrong? My apologies, but ''me habla espanol'', and 'por favor' is Spanish."}}

 

* ''Under the Lemon Tree'' (now ''[[Goblin Hollow]]'') had this [https://web.archive.org/web/20130305183714/http://www.rhjunior.com/GH/00332.html happen] in Navajo.

* On [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=74 this page] of ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', Gamma mutters to herself in Polish, calling Antimony and Kat stupid. Annie replies in Polish, "That wasn't very nice."

* One comic in ''[[Exploitation Now]]'' had Jordan and Bush hitching a ride on a bus full of Asian girls from an anime con. One of the girls in front of them notices the two and seeing Bush, thinking she a fellow Asian (since Bush is half Asian) starts to mock Jordan in her native tongue thinking Jordan can't understand her. However it turns out Bush can't understand the language but Jordan ''can'' and quickly lets the girl know she not amused.

* Sandra in [http://www.menagea3.net/d/20110120.html this (NSFW)] ''[[Ménage à 3]]'' is unconcerned about discussing her private life with Matt because she assumes that Senna, who is from Brazil, speaks "Brazilianese". She does, plus [[Oh Crap|four other languages]].

 

* Subverted on ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVJfEahCUBI Elevator]'': Harold doesn't know Spanish, but he does know how to say "Hey! I know what you're saying" in twenty languages.

* In ''[[The Guild]]'', when Kwan the Korean programmer insults his opposing team in Korean, and Vork, leader retaliates...in a language that is barely recognizable as Korean...though to be fair the translator's Korean isn't that much better.

* ''[[(The Customer is) Not Always Right]]'' got [http://notalwaysright.com/cost-in-the-translation-part-2 this] all over the place, naturally. Including [http://notalwaysright.com/arabian-plights-2 one] minor [[Mind Screw]] and [http://notalwaysright.com/a-moooo-sing-customers-part-2 a case pretending to be trilingual].

 

* In ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', Bart and Lisa try to have a private conversation in [[Pig Latin]]. Marge mentions that she was using it since before they were born.

{{quote|'''Bart''' and '''Lisa:''' ...Ap-cray.}}

* Happens [[Your Mom|once]] in ''[[American Dragon: Jake Long]]'' between Jake's father and Gramps.

 

* There's an anecdote about Haim Saban that goes as such: During the 80's, Saban was attempting to buy [[Kiss]] Licensing rights, and was meeting with Gene Simmons with Avi Arad at his side. At a certain point in the meeting, Saban turns to Arad and says, in Hebrew, "now we will gut him." Simmons responded by saying "You asshole, I'm one of you" in Hebrew and walking out of the meeting; his birth name is Chaim Witz, and he was born near Haifa in northern Israel.

* [http://www.overheardeverywhere.com/archives/002438.html One story on the website "Overheard Everywhere"] has an airport worker in Cologne refer to a pair of female Americans as sluts to one of his fellows—in German, of course.

* When [[George Takei]] was a teenager, he earned some extra cash as a seasonal worker among mostly Mexican-Americans. The overseers were Japanese-Americans and one day he overheard them talking in Japanese about how they were going to cheat the workers out of some of their rightful pay. Cue young George telling them in the same language that if they did, he'd report them. They caved.

* In the end of the 19th century, a French banker visited a Russian factory he owned. There, he saw one man working with a wheelbarrow loaded with material for a blast furnace. He said (in French) "This monkey is working well". However, the worker was actually a nobleman who ran from his house, and knew French perfectly. So, he turned the wheelbarrow at him, and drove him halfway across the yard. When the banker had to climb an ore heap, the man stopped and said (in French!) "sorry, the flooring here is too rough to control the wheelbarrow". The flooring was replaced...

 

{{reflist}}