Poirot Speak: Difference between revisions

* Mio Hio in ''[[D.N.Angel]]'' mixes in English words with Japanese, both of which are accented.

* Renais-Kardif Shishio from ''[[GaoGaiGar|GaoGaiGar FINAL]]'' is French, and therefore peppers her speech with very basic French.

** [[Eagle Land|Swan White. Stallion White. Mic Sounders XIII.]]

* All the German and French characters in the ''[[Hellsing]]'' manga (in the English translation). It's especially jarring when they're talking amongst themselves.

* ''[[Borat]]''.

* A minor German character in [[The Big Lebowski]] speaks like this when starring in a porno.

* Inverted in [[The Terminal]]. When Viktor Navorski is beginning to grasp the English language, he usually uses English words for basic pronouns, prepositions, etc., but falls back to Krakhozhian when referring to more specific things - like mustard.

* Dominique from ''[[D.E.B.S.]]''

 

 

* There are a trilogy of books by [[Miles Kington]], entitled "Let's Parler Franglais", "Let's Parler Franglais Again" and "Lets Parler Franglais Une More Temps", which teach a mangled version of French of this type (for comedy but presented as serious language lessons). Franglais is described as "The language you can speak if you know English and O-Level (Middle School) French".

* P. J. O'Rourke's "Fake French in Nine (Neuf) Easy Lessons" is another instructional text on Franglais.

* There is also a series of books full of the mistakes Dutch people have made whilst trying to speak English, but while still using Dutch words/grammar. This stems from the fact that English and Dutch are related, and share many of the same words. Sometimes words ''sound'' familiar, but mean something slightly different, but hilarious, or something different entirely.

** It also comments on the fact that a lot of Dutch people literally translate Dutch proverbs into English.

* Herald Alberich from [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s [[Heralds of Valdemar]] series routinely speaks Valdemaran with Karsite word order. He was born and raised in Karse and only ended up in Valdemar after being kidnapped/rescued by a [[Intellectual Animal|Companion]], who eventually psychically fed Valdemarian vocabulary into his head... and ''only'' vocabulary, leading Alberich to use Valdemarian words with Karsite grammar.

* Used by Fitz Kreiner, from the [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]], who cannot communicate in German but is simply [[Heroic BSOD|being weird]]:

* Used in ''[[The Da Vinci Code]]'' frequently. The ''second line of dialogue'' after the prologue reads, "Mais monsieur, your guest is an important man." This is representative of most conversations involving non-native English speakers in the book.

** [[Harry Turtledove]] uses the same tactic to make sure you don't forget that people with French names in obviously French-speaking places speak French, or whatever other lingual group the story focuses on. In the [[Worldwar]] series, very little of The Race's language is ever translated into English in the text, but they have distinctive speech patterns which are often indicated (such as the 'interrogative cough'), which people will often use even when speaking human languages which have their own auditory cues to indicate that a question is being asked.

* Bill Wyman's single ''Je Suis Un Rock Star''.

* [[Cyrano De Bergerac]]: Lampshaded by Ragueneau at Act II Scene VII, who hears only a few words spoken in Gascon dialect to realize that [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|The Cadets are a regiment composed of Gascons]]… and to be fearful of them [[Heroic Sociopath|(they have a reputation)]]. Notice those are the only Gascon words in the play (apart from some in Act IV), because the Gascon Cadets all talk in [[Surprisingly Good English|SurprisinglyGoodFrench]]:

'''Cadets''' All! }}

 

* [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'', in which a group of Mexicans who speak Poirot Speak are redundantly subtitled. "Hola, señor" has an asterisk placed next to it, and the footnote at the bottom of the page helpfully translates it as "Hello, mister"; the word "policia" is spoken four times in a single speech (it is, in fact, the ''only'' Spanish word on the page), and the comic dutifully provides four footnotes reading "police."

* Anja Donlan from ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' is not a native English speaker. This is shown in one [[Flash Back]], where she makes several grammar mistakes. (By the present day, over a decade later, her English is pretty much perfect.)

* The [[Those Wacky Nazis|nazis]] in ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]''.

* In ''[[Darths and Droids]]'', Count Dooku is apparently [[Space X|Space French]], so he uses lots of Space French words in his speech. By [[Translation Convention]], Space French sounds exactly like French.

* ''[[Road Rovers]]'': Exile, the Russian, frequently peppered his speech by putting "-ski" at the end of random words.

* ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'': Omi, one of the main characters, demonstrates this trope repeatedly in most episodes by butchering even common figures of speech. He is always promptly corrected, except in one case: none of the other characters could seem to make heads or tails of his words enough to even guess at what he meant.

** At least one mangling that none of the others could figure out was, "This is not a delicacy!" after facing resistance trying to boss around the team. Mangled word being ''democracy'', natch.

* ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'': The animated series, at least, uses this for Starfire in the stilted but understandable version. She also adds particles (usually "the") before the names of villains ("the Cinderblock" or "the Mumbo"), and is also an example of [[Pardon My Klingon]] with her use of untranslatable Tamaranian words in numerous contexts.

* Just because she understands it doesn't mean she's used to speaking it.

* In ''[[The Inspector (animation)|The Inspector]]'' cartoons from [[DePatie-Freleng Enterprises]], The Inspector (an [[Expy]] for [[The Pink Panther|Inspector Clouseau]]) has a fairly mild accent, though he does pepper his dialog with "oui" and other short words. In the early cartoons, however, his [[Sidekick]], Sgt. Deux-Deux, speaks with a mild Spanish accent -- and, as a [[Running Gag]], often says "sí", to the Inspector's irritation. This was phased out in later cartoons, possibly due to [[Political Correctness]].

'''Deux-Deux:''' "Sí, Inspector." }}

** On at least one occasion, ''si'' was the correct thing to say even in French (positive reply to a negative question).