Gratuitous English: Difference between revisions

Subverted by [[Surprisingly Good English]]. Compare [[Bilingual Dialogue]] for a more surreal linguistic experience, and [[Blind Idiot Translation]] for the ''really'' bad version. See also [[Gratuitous Foreign Language]] and all its subtropes.

 

{{examples}}

== Advertising ==

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaVPCTXIBeE KOMINGU SUUN DAKUPO!] <ref>[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance|Coming soon, kupo!]]</ref>

 

== Comic Books ==

* This is implied rather heavily to be part of the reason for the Japanese Super Young Team's awkward sounding names in [[The DCU]], the other being simply awkward translation. Big Atomic Lantern Boy's name is almost certainly entirely in English, though.

* In ''[[American Born Chinese]]'', a new immigrant student from Taiwan first appears with a shirt that reads "Happy Robot".

 

== Fan Works ==

* In ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'', Kyon was forced to cosplay in a Victorian suit. He accepts tea from Yuki, who was in an [[Elegant Gothic Lolita]] costume, with gratuitous, but grammatically correct, English. Mikuru nearly squealed in delight.

* In [http://youtu.be/wAJFkpJX8K0 this] Japanese fan-dub of a scene from the ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]'' episode "Party of One", "Mrs. Flour" speaks in Gratuitous English.

 

== Films ==

* In the Japanese translations of the ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' series, the names of the characters, which are usually combinations of nouns, verbs and adjectives, are left in English.

 

* In an episode of ''[[News Radio]]'', Jimmy James' book "Jimmy James: Capitalist Lion Tamer" becomes popular in Japan, so for some reason he has the Japanese version translated back into English... and it ends up pure Gratuitous English. The title becomes "Jimmy James: Macho Business Donkey Wrestler", and the book now features lines like "Glorious sunset of my heart was fading. Soon the super karate monkey death car would park in my space. But Jimmy has fancy plans, and pants to match."

** "What did you mean when you wrote, bad clown making like super American car racers, I would make them sweat, war war?"

* Parodied to hell and back by [[The Fast Show]] 's Chanel 9. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piKeDrrOrsE Like here!]

* Gutiérrez, a character in Colombian telenovela ''[[Yo Soy Betty, la Fea]]'', does this a lot.

 

== Music ==

== Newspaper Comics ==

* A French translation of a ''[[Peanuts]]'' comic strip once had Linus Van Pelt, after speaking in perfect French, refer to his blanket-hating, caffeine-addicted grandmother as "Granny." Pretty jolting, especially since the French almost certainly have a pet name of their own for their grandmothers.

 

== Porn ==

* You can expect a lot of this trope in porn productions made in not English-speaking countries, as it is supposed to appeal American or British audiences, usually with a female yelling typical porn [[Stock Phrases]], generally with an outrageous Hungarian / Filipino / Brazilian / French / Whatever accent. As with most of things in porn, YMMV if this is actually sexy, funny or none of the above.

 

== Pro Wrestling ==

* A lot of classic [[All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling|Zenjo]] tag teams name fall into this. Some, like the Dynamite Girls, sound normal enough. Others, like the Queen Angels or Beauty Pair, straddle the line. And then you have teams with names like Marine Wolves and Dream Orca...

 

* The "Alabama Song" (which, of course, was [[Covered Up]] by [[The Doors]]) and "Benares Song" in ''Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny'' (''[[The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny]]''). [[Bertolt Brecht]]'s use of English is rather awkward in the latter: "There is no boy with whom to shake hands. Where is the telephone? Is here no telephone?" In the former, the [[Shotacon]] implications of the line "show me the way to the next little boy" were doubtless unintentional.

* ''Madama Butterfly'' throws off a few Gratuitous English phrases, most notably Pinkerton's toast to "America for ever!"

* In ''[[Cabaret]]'', many of the phrases in the opening number "Willkommen" are sung in [[Gratuitous German]], then in [[Gratuitous French]], then in Gratuitous English.

 

== Video Games ==

** Then again, Ness comes from [[Eagle Land]], so I suppose it's justfied...

* Inverted in ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20120508061729/http://kotaku.com/348202/gibberish-japanese-in-resident-evil-movie Resident Evil Extinction]'', where a Japanese subway sign sports nonsensical ''kanji''.

* ''[[Super Mario Sunshine]]'' has "SHINE GET!" (The "get" was wiped from the North America releases, though.)

** ''[[Super Mario Galaxy]]'' has "Star Get!" and "Grand Star Get!". The US release had it rewritten this time, however.

* ''[[American Dad]]'': "SUCK... MY... BOWLS!"

* In a non-Japanese example, ''[[Metalocalypse]]'' gives us [[Funny Foreigner|Swedish Skwisgaar and Norwegian Toki]], who both suffer from the same ignorance of the English language. They both have atrocious problems with putting excessive plurals at the end of words (whether or not they are nouns in the first place), frequently use "am" for ''any'' form of the word "be", and have a bad grasp on vocabulary in general.

 

== Real Life ==

* [[Aya Hirano]], voice actress for [[Haruhi Suzumiya|Suzumiya Haruhi]], wore a shirt saying "Did You Cum Twice Too?" and "Feel so dirty!!! I need a Tongue Bath!" at an official concert. Fans are pretty sure she didn't actually know what those words ''meant''. Although you can never say for sure...

** Seeing how Aya has written lyrics for an English (well, more like very, very Engrish) song, you might want to reconsider that.

* As a general rule, Germans ''LOVE'' their Gratuitous English almost as much as the Japanese. Since both languages are very closely related (the Angles and the Saxons were German tribes before they settled England), English words integrate very well into the German language and while many words in both languages are almost or completely identical, some similar-sounding words mean very different things. They are known as ''Falsche Freunde'' in German and ''False Friends'' in English. (Interestingly, False Friends is ''not'' a False Friend). In General, using English words is the same as using [[Xtreme Kool Letterz]].

** The most infamous example is of German discount store chain Lidl once advertising "body bags". They meant backpacks. Many, many producers still call their backpacks "body bags".

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Bollywood Tropes]]

[[Category:Language Tropes]]

[[Category:Gratuitous Foreign Language]]

[[Category:Index]]

[[Category:Self-Demonstrating Article]]

[[Category:English language]]