Fun with Foreign Languages: Difference between revisions

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* Done in ''Impulse'' when Bart Allen "teaches" his mentor Interlac.

== [[Film]] ==

* The Non-Ironic Language Echo appears in ''[[Love Actually]]'': when a monolingual Englishman is trying to converse with his monolingual Portuguese maid (with whom he is, needless to say, in love) they both end up saying exactly the same things. The story later goes on to partially subvert the [[Language of Love]] trope by having him take a crash-course in Portuguese before they take the relationship further, although the subtitles reveal that he still speaks it pretty poorly at the end of the film when he proposes to her.

* ''[[Rush Hour]] 2'': Detective Carter tries to speak to a crowd in Chinese, but Inspector Lee tells Carter:

** He also fouls up other situations, for example he thought he asked two attractive Chinese ladies for coffee. He actually invited them to get naked. They were not amused.

** In the first movie, Carter spends his first few scenes with Lee believing he can't speak English. Lee lets him believe this until it's convenient for him to reveal he's fluent.

* In the Ridley Scott thriller ''[[Black Rain]]'' Nick (Michael Douglas) asks "Is there a single Nip in this place who speaks fucking English?" in front of a Japanese cop who proceeds to introduce his police boss before finishing "-- and I do speaking fucking English". Fortunately Nick's American partner, Charlie, is [[Tactful Translation|a lot wiser]].

'''[[Da Chief|High Ranking Police Boss]]''': "WHAT did you say?"<br />

'''Charlie''': "He means 'a tough motherfucker'."<br />

** This proves a [[Running Gag]], as when Nick's bitter "I like to be kissed before I'm fucked!" is translated by Charlie simply as "Foreplay."

* In the 1985 comedy ''[[Water]]'', American oil executives land on the island of Cascara and come across the local radical liberation front -- all two of them (one of whom is Billy Connolly, whose character only communicates through [[Dreadful Musician|bad singing]]).

'''Executive:''' "Is that a political posture or a speech impediment?" }}

* From ''[[Spies Like Us]]''. Chevy Chase and Dan Ackroyd are dropped into Pakistan only to be captured by bandits.

'''Dan Ackroyd''' (taking hold of the bandit's head): "Hello! Hello!" }}

* In ''Corky Romano'', there's a particular amusing scene where Corky has to be the translator between a Thai and Vietnamese gangster. The problem? Corky doesn't actually speak either language, and just ends up repeating what ever was said to him back to the two others. It both confuses and eventually insults the gangsters, causing hilarity and violence to ensue.

* ''[[Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow]]''. Sky Captain asks Kaji, his contact in Nepal, about his Tibetan language skills. Glancing at [[Hot Scoop]] Polly Perkins, Kaji replies in Tibetan: "When cold, nipples hard."

* In Eurotrip (2004), the group of teenagers is trying to get a lift to Berlin:

'''Truck Driver''': [to self, in German] I'll drive this truck off a cliff before I ever go back to Berlin. }}

** [[Fun with Subtitles]]: The driver never actually says that he sexually assaulted a horse. It's only in the subtitles.

*** What he actually says is, "I was arrested near Berlin. I'm never going to Berlin again."

* There was some movie, name forgotten, where a member of the mafia stole and hid the cash from a bank heist. Only he's mute, so they had to get a translator for that. Their conversation was more or less like this:

'''Mafia Boss:''' Ok, screw the money! }}

* Somewhat similar to the ''[[George of the Jungle]]'' example, in ''[[Wizards of Waverly Place]]'' the movie Alex can't understand the locals, but uses a spell to create a literal caption floating in the air that translates for her, but while she is right about them talking about the cave, they also talk about how she's a strange girl and maybe if they just smile and nod she'll go away.

* In ''Nadja'', after Nadja is injured but gets away, Edgar tries to figure out her location using [[Twin Telepathy]], which causes him to revert to his native Romanian as he describes what he's picking up; Van Helsing provides a running translation for the others. Part of it goes like this:

'''Van Helsing:''' ...for a cigarette. }}

* ''[[The Talented Mr. Ripley]]'':

'''Peter''' (translating): ''No.'' }}

* In the Russian film ''Peculiarities of the National Hunt'', a young Finn wants to study Russian hunting traditions and arranges a hunt with his English-speaking Russian friend. The forest ranger who accompanies them speaks neither English nor Finnish, and the Finn does not speak Russian. When the two of them get drunk they suddenly discover that both of them speak nearly perfect German, but the ranger totally forgets that language once he sobers up. However, by the end of the "hunt" the Finn and the ranger are miraculously able to understand each other with each speaking his own language.

* In the [[Abbott and Costello]] movie ''Lost In Alaska'', Costello sees some Eskimos communicating in sign language and makes a few random hand gestures of his own. The Eskimo chief starts laughing, telling Costello, "You just told a funny joke!" Later, when Costello meets an attractive Eskimo lady, he tries to impress her by creating the same hand gestures he used before. She slaps him in the face; apparently it was ''that'' kind of joke.

* In ''La Vita e Bella'' (''[[Life Is Beautiful]]''), Roberto Benigni's character, Guido, translates the Nazi officer's brutal instructions into Italian for his fellow prisoners, among whom is Guido's young son. To spare his kid's innocence, the version he offers in Italian is not exactly a literal translation.

** Therer's even a double payoff from this seemingly random speech: not only does the son retain his innocence, but he "wins" the tank!

* In the 2011 film ''Courageous'', the main character Adam has his friend Javier in the back seat of his patrol car. While Javier is still in the back seat, a call goes out for a warrant of a drug trafficker. As Adam arrests the trafficker, he tells Javier to act like a crazed man to freak out the trafficker. The trafficker is disturbed by the behavior of Javier, as Adam has told the trafficker they have the leader of the gang "The Snake Kings" in the patrol car and he is not to make eye contact if he values his life. When Javier starts speaking Spanish in a sinister tone, the trafficker starts freaking out. The translation captions shows us Javier's only listing his lunch plans.

** There is also a very funny scene involving Elliot trying to talk past a patient's kid with Turk in French. Turk's knowledge of that language is evidently limited to what his high-school classmates taught him. The subtitles are roughly accurate. What Elliot says is quite literate. What does Turk say? "I have the Eiffel Tower in my pants." I might add that he says it badly -- what he says translates word-for-word as "I have Eiffel Tower pants."

** Another episode of ''[[Scrubs]]'' had the Janitor acting as a sign language interpreter between Turk and JD and a deaf father and son.

** Turk finally learns Spanish as an anniversary present to Carla. He decides to keep it secret though when he finds he can benefit from hearing things Carla thinks he can't understand.

** ''[[Scrubs]]'' loves this joke: in another episode Dr Cox asks Elliot how to tell a German patient he has lung cancer. Elliot, being annoyed with him, teaches him to say "Your wife has huge cans." Even better, when he says it, he's miming what he ''intends'' to be lungs...

* Donovan Deegan, father of ''[[Dominic Deegan]]'''s title character, speaks Orcish - to some degree. When he received the Orc name "Kulka Sheendo Dak," he was told it meant "bringer of peace and joy." Appropriate as that would have been, he found out many years later that "bringer of peace and joy" was "Kilka Shiendo Dak." As Donovan proudly dressed in pink most of the time, they had named him "little pink man in pink." His Orcish provided comedy on other instances as well, with such statements as "[http://www.zestuff.com/dd/apparel/498/ My land mass erupts with kittens.]"

** Recently, it's revealed that Donovan has not only been providing Fun With Languages, he's been {{spoiler|having his own fun with languages. He speaks perfectly fluent Orcish, coming out with a profound "I believe it goes, '<It is not the language of the clans but the language of nature to which one has to listen.>'}} [http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2010-01-12 Cue WTF faces from all present.]

'''Hukthak:''' <I knew it!> }}

* Played with in [[Duckman]], usually by Cornfed. "Either you're babbling, or you just told me in Cherokee 'my scrotum is many colored'."

* ''[[Family Guy]]'' toyed with this by having a Spanish character only speaking enough English to respond to Brian's first two sentences.

Migrant Worker: Que? }}

* In ''[[American Dad]]'', Steve's friend, Toshi only speaks (subtitled) Japanese. People assume several times that assumes he has said something completely unrelated to what he has actually said, often the exact opposite.

* Russian joke featuring a performer introducing herself as "Yani Suka Takaya" (which sounds Japanese), except that it actually means "I am not such a bitch" or "Yani, such a bitch" in Russian.

* The Spanish swearword "cojones" (balls), when used by English-speakers, is occasionally misspelt or mispronounced as "cajones" (furniture drawers). [[Hilarity Ensues]].

** Although in many dialects of English, the first vowel of both those words is reduced to ə, making them barely distinguishable from each other – especially in fast and/or casual speech.

* Apparently the Dutch Prime-Minister Gerbrandy was notorious for his bad comprehension of the English language, resulting in some hilarious incidents while the Dutch goverment was in exile in London during the Second World War. The most famous language mess-up supposedly happened between Gerbrandy and Churchill. The Dutch word for 'jump' is 'spring' and if a Dutchman were to ask someone to jump up, he'd probably say 'spring eens'. Which, when said quickly, sounds a lot like 'spring is'. So when Churchill commented to Gerbrandy 'Spring is in the air!', Gerbrandy replied puzzled 'Why should I, mister Churchill?'