Suddenly Bilingual: Difference between revisions

Occasionally in sitcoms or comedy series, a character will speak fluently in a foreign language, briefly and to the slight surprise of others, for comedic effect. Why this character can speak Tibetan or Russian or whatever is never discussed and, often, never questioned. Note that this is not referring to a character who had an unknown history of working with language- it simply occurs once and never again.

* In one episode of ''[[Lost]]'', it turns out that Juliet can speak Latin. Apparently, all Others are taught Latin. This is never mentioned again.

* A later-justified example occured in ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', when Antimony turns out to speak conversational Polish and, later, at least a bit of Spanish. Several storylines later, it's revealed - in an offhand comment - that she basically grew up with a bunch of [[Psychopomp|Psychopomps]], who taught her each of their languages (judicous use of time-stopping was apparently used). This presumably means that she also speaks Egyptian, Greek, and Hindi, along with god (of death) knows how many other languages.

* Kenneth from ''[[30 Rock|Thirty Rock]]'' is revealed to be fluent in Latin for a quick gag.

* In ''[[Sky High]]'', [[Anti-Hero]] [[Punny Name|Warren Peace]] can speak Cantonese (It gives the impression that he's fluent but this troper who speaks it as a first language can say that unfortunately he doesn't speak it very well...). This is very convenient, because he works at a Chinese restaurant. whether he learned it at work or if he already knew it is never explained, and he certainly doesn't need it for anything else over the course of the movie.

* In the ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' special "Summer Belongs To You!", the [[Dumb Muscle]] bully Buford suddenly speaks fluent, and polite, French to a waiter in Paris. Then he orders Baljeet never to tell anyone.

* In one episode of ''[[The New Statesman]]'', Alan B'Stard is on trial, and one of his fake witnesses is pretending to be a chief of a native South American tribe. It turns out that the prosecuting lawyer can speak the language of that tribe, having been a [[British English|fag]] for the tribe's high chief while they were both at Eton College.

* Bart Simpson [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshades]] this one in an episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'', where he goes to France in an exchange program and starts suddenly speaking French ''in the middle of a sentence''.

* From ''[[King of the Hill]]'', Bill speaks French because he grew up in an upper class Cajun family in Louisiana. Peggy lampshades this and Bill seemed genuinely surprised that he spoke French too, or that the language he was speaking was French it's not quite clear.

* [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in [[Toy Story]] 3 with {{spoiler|Buzz's Spanish Mode.}}

* Bubbles in ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' can speak Spanish, though she doesn't have the chance much. Why can she? Because each of the girls has one unique superpower. That's hers.

* Used on [[The Office]]: when Karen calls a company in Canada looking for her favorite chips, she speaks in perfect French. Never seen before that scene or since.

* On ''[[iCarly]]'', especially in the second and third seasons, Freddy often bursts into [[Gratuitous Spanish]]. This implies that he is somewhat bilingual.

* ''[[Family Guy]]'': Brian is riding in the back of a truck and tries to talk to a Hispanic passenger, and is struggling with his junior-high Spanish:

* In ''[[Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo]]'', Starfire becomes able to speak Japanese by kissing a local.

* Jenny from ''[[My Life as a Teenage Robot]]'' has several language discs that enable her to speak in foreign tongues. In one episode she loses her English disc while fighing a [[Kaiju]] in Japan and is stuck speaking Japanese for the rest of the episode.

* On ''[[Dollhouse]]'' Actives can speak multiple languages when they're imprinted with new minds. The [[Distant Finale]] also features people who have been modified to be able to insert and remove information packets from their heads, which includes {{spoiler|Victor/Anthony}} arriving speaking one language and replacing it with an English version.

* In ''[[Harry Potter]]'' Harry can speak Parseltongue, the language of snakes. He can't tell when he's doing it, so he didn't even realize this was a special power until the second book when his friends had to explain that he'd suddenly started sputtering hisses in front of everyone.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy X -2]]'', Paine reveals out of nowhere that she can speak the Al Bhed language, something the Al Bhed she'd been travelling with didn't realize.