...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
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- 267 statements
- 50 feature instances
- 43 referencing feature instances
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Characters begin speaking in a language other than the primary language of the audience, but find an excuse to switch to the more familiar language so that the audience doesn't have to read too many of those pesky subtitles. Unlike Translation Convention or Translator Microbes, the characters who switch to English really are speaking English. Usually, a specific reason will be given in the work for characters switching to a different language in mid-conversation. There are many ways that the switch can happen. A common reason given to justify two non-native speakers speaking English to each other is that they do so in order to "practice". Conversely, sometimes Alice and Bob might discover that they are both from an English-speaking country and don't need to speak the vernacular of where they are in when speaking to each other. Maybe Alice will suggest to switch to English because she knows it better than the current language of the conversation, or maybe they are somewhere where few people know English and they don't want to be overheard, or so on and so forth. If this is done poorly, it can be jarring and seem forced, especially if the characters really have no good reason to switch. In addition, some non-English productions, such as Nordic cop shows, may feature this when two characters who can't speak each other's native language decide to both switch to English, which they can both speak - for example, Aliona can't speak Russian, Boris can't speak Italian, but they both can speak English; probably because they learned it at school. Keep in mind that some examples of Translation Convention can be mistaken for this. This trope only applies if there is a reason in universe for the characters to be speaking in a language the audience can understand instead of the characters' own. This does not apply to situations where the characters speak English for the convenience of the audience, but are understood to be actually speaking another language. Also compare Completely Unnecessary Translator, which is about a character speaking to someone through a translator only to reveal that he actually speaks their language perfectly fluently. See also Eloquent in My Native Tongue, which can be an inverse of this trope, as it may start with them speaking an unfamiliar language and switch to a more comfortable one. Examples |
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Justified in Joyeux Noël as English is the only language that all the lieutenants from Scotland, Germany and France are able to speak with each other. However, when it is just the French and German lieutenants, the language of choice is French as the German lieutenant is able to speak fluently in it as he is married to a French woman. | |
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Wonder Woman (1942): Once Wonder Woman reveals that she has learnt their language her Saturnain captors switch to speaking English to each other in her presence and from that point it becomes very unclear when they're speaking English or their own language. | |
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In A Certain Magical Index, while working together in Japan, Stiyl (an English priest) and Agnes (an Italian nun) communicate in Japanese despite being fluent in each others' languages. Agnes claims that her English has an incomprehensibly thick Italian accent compared to her Japanese,note Truth in Television, as Italian phonics are closer to Japanese than to English. and that she would likewise wince at hearing Stiyl mangle her own mother tongue. Since Agnes is Catholic and Stiyl is Protestant, it also ensures that neither of them has an unfair advantage if an argument breaks out. | |
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In Half-Life 2, two Vortigaunts are speaking to each other in their native language, but when they notice Gordon Freeman is listening in nearby, they apologize for their rudeness and switch to English. They state that they will speak in English, unless they wish to say unkind things about you. All of their dialogue is still in their native language after this. | |
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In the pilot episode of Star Trek: Discovery, Klingon warlord T'Kuvma pulls one at the end of his opening speech to his followers. | |
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The Johann Strauss opera Die Fledermaus has a scene where two characters are pretending to be French at a Viennese ball. They exchange simple phrases and nonsense before the other guests demand they speak German like everyone else. | |
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Japanese-American O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill, Vol. 1 precedes a speech to Yakuza members by explaining in Japanese why she's about to switch to English. "So you all will know the seriousness of my warning, I shall say this in English." We hear her Number Two translate it to Japanese, though. (This arguably represents an additional layer of insult: having just effectively pointed out they all speak English perfectly well in a situation where acknowledging this would be a bit shameful, the translation implies they're incompetent as well as cultural sellouts.) | |
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Maple Sugar and Gosling: Magical Girls: When Québécois businessman Monsieur Bernard first arrives, he introduces himself to Maple Sugar in French, which she is fluent in. However, Maple asks him to speak English instead, as she doesn't want Gosling to be left out of the conversation. | |
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In Neon Genesis Evangelion, in Asuka's first appearance, she tries to link up to her EVA in German while Shinji is riding with her in the cockpit. Her EVA is unresponsive due to Shinji's Japanese thoughts interfering, so she commands it to switch to Japanese mode. | |
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In The Two Towers in Lord of the Rings Legolas and Aragorn are discussing Rohan's recruits, with Legolas disparaging them. They use Elvish, which Aragorn speaks fluently, until, exasperated, he breaks into English (which is supposed to be Westron, the Common Language of Middle-Earth). | |
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| TheTwoTowers | hasFeature |
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Inverted in The Legend of Zorro. After the title character rescues his son from the Big Bad's gang, they start a conversation in English. Then Zorro cuts the conversation off and requests that they converse in "the language of our fathers" — Spanish. The rest of the conversation occurs in Spanish with English subtitles. | |
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In Rhythm Heaven Fever, during the practice for "Tambourine", a monkey gives you instructions in "ooks". When you get past the first set, he informs you, in Monkey, "As a reward, I shall now switch to English." | |
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In Jingo, the Klatchian armies speak Morporkian (i.e. English) because there are so many Klatchian languages, and even though Ankh-Morpork is the enemy, its status as a Merchant City means they all speak the language for trading purposes. | |
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The Americans, where the Russian spies and their handlers spoke English all the time, because apparently they did not want to get out of character, although the real purpose was to cover up the obviously very American accents the actors had in the very few lines they spoke in Russian. That being said, The Americans was about the only halfway decent show when it came to hiring Russian actors - at least all the characters from the Russian embassy or appearing in the scenes set in Russia were played by them and the showmakers were not afraid of extensive subtitled scenes. | |
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Inglourious Basterds: Happens with Lieutenant Archie Hicox, whose German is flawless (although his strange accent arouses suspicion among German soldiers and an SS officer), after he is discovered as a spy. | |
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In Johnny Mnemonic, Takahashi and Shinji begin a conversation in Japanese, before Takahashi chastises Shinji for speaking "terrible" Japanese and demands Shinji talk to him in English. Towards the end of their conversation, Takahashi switches to English, as well. | |
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In Dragon Ball Z Abridged: When Dende brings Krillin before Guru, Nail initially addresses Dende in Namekian. When he realizes Krillin is from Earth, they switch to the "universal language": English. Nail does the same thing when meeting Piccolo. With Nail laying dying from being defeated by Frieza at the time, Piccolo initially thinks he's been beaten so badly he can no longer speak properly. |
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In Stargate SG-1, Daniel Jackson is sent over to Russia to handle negotiations. Russian being one of the numerous languages Jackson knows, one would think that he'd speak in Russian while there. But it turns out that his Russian contact thinks his Russian is terrible, and asks that they stick to English instead. | |
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In Anyone Can Whistle, when Fay, in her French-accented Lady in Red disguise, meets Hapgood, they have a subtitled conversation in Gratuitous French. When he asks her (still in French) about her red hair, their conversation switches back to English: | |
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In Rise To Honor the default option is to have all the dialogue in Hong Kong spoken in Cantonese, but it switches entirely to English upon Kit's arrival in San Francisco from Hong Kong. However, upon his return, he and the other characters revert to speaking Cantonese, including his friend Michelle who traveled back with him, even when the two are speaking amongst themselves, with no justification given. | |
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In the movie version of The Da Vinci Code, two French characters have conversations in English, via the "you have to practice this foreign language" excuse. | |
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In Saints Row 2 there are several points where Shogo tells Jyunichi to speak English rather than Japanese. | |
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The Sabaton Cruise concert on the deluxe edition of Heroes has frontman Joakim Broden mostly speaking Swedish (it's a Finnish liner, meaning most of the passengers understand it), but switching to English sometimes when he needs to explain something to other members of the audience (such as teaching the Poles how to say "Another beer please" in Swedish and vice versa). Then there's a bit where he gives a prize to a Swedish member of the audience and keeps going in English for a moment. | |
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Star Trek: Inverted in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock — the Klingons in an early scene start talking in English before switching to Klingon. A rather odd example happens in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and it occurs with the Translation Convention in place (after it's been non-humorously Lampshaded). During Kirk and McCoy's trial (which is conducted in Klingon, and Kirk and McCoy are shown listening to a translation with devices), the scene starts in Klingon, then switches to Klingon translators translating into English (or at least Federation Standard) then switching back to the trial itself, and now everybody is speaking English (Translation Convention). At one point General Chang starts yelling at Kirk about his background and says "Don't wait for the translation! Answer me now!" (in Klingon, but we see English) and Kirk responds, showing not only that he speaks Klingon, but that Chang knows he speaks Klingon. |
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Moscow on the Hudson: During an early scene in Russia, two characters decide to practice their English by continuing their conversation in English. | |
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Happens in a weird scene in Desperate Journey. After the Allied pilots knock out Gestapo Major Baumeister and escape from his office, Baumeister calls in his subordinate to talk about catching them. All the Germans in the movie have spoken in German to this point, but the film needed to get some plot across, so Baumeister asks his underling "You speak English, don't you?" The rest of the scene unfolds in English, for no reason. | |
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In Gung Ho, Takahara Kazuhiro's wife starts speaking Japanese to him in one scene, but he tells her to practice her English and they continue the conversation in English. | |
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Near the beginning of Iron Sky, Renate, teaching German schoolchildren on the moon, says that she will be conducting the rest of the class in English as practice. It certainly helps the audience, too. | |
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In The Transporter, a Chinese father tells his daughter to converse in English with him (even though she speaks perfect Chinese), because language school was expensive. For reference, the film is set in France. | |
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This happens in Sicario when Alejandro confronts Alarcon in front of his wife and children, with the wording being so that his children don't have to hear why he's here to kill him. | |
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Murdoch Mysteries: Early in "Monsieur Murdoch" when Murdoch, Higgins and Crabtree find a man in a missing woman's hotel room, the constables tackle the man, who speaks in French, demanding to be released. Murdoch asks the man to identify himself in French, and the man does so — turns out he's a member of the Paris police. Soon he insultingly suggests switching to English so he can butcher that language instead. Murdoch doesn't take the bait, but later on (once the two are working together), he reverts to French without provoking any complaint from the Frenchman. | |
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Primal Warrior Draco Azul: When Eric first meets Ekchuah, the AI is set to speak in Yucatec Maya but quickly uses wireless communications to tap into the Internet and download the English lexicon. | |
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NCIS: In the episode "Blowback," Ducky goes undercover for a meeting with French Arms Dealer La Grenouille. They start conversing in French before McGee prompts Ducky via earwig to switch to English. Zig-Zagged in "Legend" — to pose as Russian agents, Gibbs and Callen switch to Russian before switching back to English with a Russian accent. The episode "Twenty Klicks" starts out this way: |
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Done in-game but not literally story-wise in Infinity Blade II. The first game was voiced entirely in a fictional language called Pangean. In the beginning of the second game, the first line is spoken in Pangean, then it switches to English for the rest of the game (and series), as a way to establish Translation Convention. | |
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Often happens in Covert Affairs. Annie will find her contact, begin speaking to them in their native language and then the contact will say something about being fluent in English and from there on out they will speak in English. | |
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In The Hunt for Red October, when Jack Ryan, Bart Mancuso, and Jonesy first come aboard the titular Russian submarine, Jack breaks the ice by asking for a cigarette (until this point he's said, "I don't smoke" every time an American offered him one), but does so with a gesture as if he didn't know any Russian. Naturally, he starts getting sick. The Russians notice this and start laughing. When Captain Ramius sees that Mancuso has a pistol, he makes a comment in Russian about it (using a Russian word that sounds just like "buckaroo"), and Ryan starts to chuckle. | |
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In the pilot episode of Wonder Woman (1975), a Nazi officer greets with one of his spies in German before telling his subordinate they should switch to speaking in English to prevent anyone hearing the spy's secret mission. However, the whole thing is for naught since the officer's eavesdropping assistant is an Allied double agent who speaks both English and German. | |
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In The Man with Two Brains, Dr. Hfuhruhurr gets pulled over by a German-speaking policeman. When he replies to the policeman in English, the policeman says, "Oh, you speak English! Good!" and directs his partner to turn off the subtitles. | |
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In Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona: Maria Elena and Juan Antonio are Spanish. Cristina is American. When the three of them gather to converse, Maria first talks to Juan in Spanish, but Juan comes up with the objection that it shows disrespect to Cristina, who doesn't speak Spanish. So then all of them switch to English merrily after some random arguments about Chinese. | |
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Frequently happened in Until the End of the World: Claire variously speaks French and English, and also some German. She frequently switches to English to converse with others. | |
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Inverted in the Blackadder short film Blackadder: Back and Forth. The 21st-century Blackadder and Baldrick have traveled back in time to when the Romans ruled Britain, where their identical ancestors are guarding Hadrian's Wall. All the Roman characters speak English; however, when General Melchett('s Roman ancestor) shows up, he compliments one of the characters on his excellent English — then switches into Latin, which everyone speaks for the rest of the scene. | |
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In the 1989 Doctor Who story "The Curse of Fenric", a group of World War II-era Soviet soldiers are on a secret mission in England. The first scene has them speaking Russian with subtitles, then their leader says "From now on, we speak only English", and they do — with implausible dedication in some cases, up to and including while dying. Quite how the still clearly Russian-accented soldiers were expected to blend in with the natives is debatable. | |
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In the Monty Python's Flying Circus episode "The Cycling Tour", John Cleese is a Soviet officer making a speech in Russian to fellow Soviets, pausing for the subtitles to show, and then says in Russian, "Forgive me if I continue in English in order to save time." | |
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In the 2010 Robin Hood film, the King of France and the English traitor Sir Godfrey begin a conversation in French, before the King asks to switch to English. This is especially weird since as a 12th century noble Sir Godfrey's native tongue should also be French. | |
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This happens at the very beginning of Grand Theft Auto IV. Niko tries to speak to his cousin Roman in Serbian, but Roman switches to English, because he has not spoken Serbian for so long that he has forgotten it. | |
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In the Swedish series Arne Dahl, this happens on at least two occasions. One character goes to Estonia for a case (he ends up getting nailed to a wall, but that's another story) and speaks English to his Estonian counterparts. In "Europa Blues", Arto flies to Italy as part of the case. After trying his best at Italian, the Italian cop suggests that he switches to English. |
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A rather odd example happens in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and it occurs with the Translation Convention in place (after it's been non-humorously Lampshaded). During Kirk and McCoy's trial (which is conducted in Klingon, and Kirk and McCoy are shown listening to a translation with devices), the scene starts in Klingon, then switches to Klingon translators translating into English (or at least Federation Standard) then switching back to the trial itself, and now everybody is speaking English (Translation Convention). At one point General Chang starts yelling at Kirk about his background and says "Don't wait for the translation! Answer me now!" (in Klingon, but we see English) and Kirk responds, showing not only that he speaks Klingon, but that Chang knows he speaks Klingon. | |
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Killing Eve, where Villanelle speaks English most of the time, even to the French (although her teacher claimed French had been her favourite language) or when she is in Russian prison. No explanation is given except for a Hand Wave: "she just doesn't like to speak Russian". Jodie Comer's accent is good, but obviously non-native. | |
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Burn Notice: In an episode, Micheal pretends to be a Russian spy. He begins talking to a contact in Russian, who suggests switching to Spanish, because his Russian is rusty. They settle on English instead. For a bit of context, Michael is fluent in several languages (as befitting a former CIA field agent), but not Spanish. Given that he was born and raised in Miami, this is funny. In another episode, an actual Russian spy does the same thing to a Cuban smuggler: "Mind if we speak English? My Spanish is not so good." |
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In Brothers & Sisters, Sarah is in France and attempts to ask for directions from a Frenchman. After much struggling, the Frenchman casually reveals he can speak English and the rest of their conversations stays in English. | |
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