History Main / AliensSpeakingEnglish

* The VisualNovel ''EienNoAselia'' heavily averts this. After the main character is transported to another world, even the voice acting suddenly changes to everyone just spouting gibberish instead of speaking Japanese. It takes weeks until he has learned enough to say even simple things like "this food is tasty" or "I am tired". As he learns more of the language, the dialogue gradually changes to include both Japanese words and gibberish until he can finally understand the language and it returns to Japanese.

* The 456 in ''Series/{{Torchwood}}: Children of Earth'' speak actual English. The characters make note of it and it has a certain significance. [[spoiler: Along with the hour at which they choose to speak, it indicates that the 456 are addressing Great Britain, with which they've already had secret dealings.]]\\
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One of the first theories they come up with is that English is the language spoken by the majority of humans; Ianto points out that this would actually be Mandarin Chinese. This provides their first suspicion that [[spoiler:the aliens have already been here before.]]
** [[CriticalResearchFailure The majority of humans do not speak Mandarin Chinese.]] Mandarin has the ''most native speakers'', but more people speak English than speak Mandarin. Even English isn't spoken by anything ''close'' to the majority of humans (1.125 billion is markedly less than half the human population.

** Worse yet, tau'ri are practically the only humans in the universe exhibiting multiple languages - it's harder to understand the Russians than the humans from another galaxy who didn't even have ancestors on Earth!

** It's explained in the expanded universe that "Basic" is the human language, and because of demographics, the common interspecies language. However, some non-human can understand basic but not speak it.

* Starfire of ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' fame kissed Dick Grayson in order to quickly absorb human lanugage from him.

* Explained in [[http://www.drunkduck.com/Jix Jix]] that the Ambis (the alien of the strip) has a device that can download languages into the user's mind. Their androids, on the other hand, can learn a language if they hear enough of it.

* Played painfully straight in ''PowerRangers''. Except for one alien in ''Series/PowerRangersSPD'', everything speaks English, from the HumanAliens to the twenty foot long mafia scorpion.
** Add in the fact that some of the creatures have been locked away for thousands of years, yet they always come out of the bottle speaking perfect English.
** Not only speak, but in the Delta Megaship rooms are named in English.

* Most tokusatsu has this trope all over the place, including ''Franchise/PowerRangers'', ''SuperSentai'' and ''Franchise/KamenRider''.

** The same happened in ''KamenRiderBlade'' in which the majority of the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Undead]] couldnt speak Japanese(or any other human language for that matter). Instead, they spoke in gibberish
** ''TokusouSentaiDekaranger'' (and naturally its English counterpart ''Series/PowerRangersSPD'' as well) averts this for once by having one [[MonsterOfTheWeek Alienizer]] who couldn't speak the local language without a translator device. The Alienizer was also a body switcher, switched bodies with the Blue Ranger and destroyed the translator device. So the Blue Ranger, in the body of a wanted criminal, had to prove to his friends that his own body was used by the criminal, while not being able to communicate normally. The majority of the other aliens speak perfect Japanese/English.

** Almost lampshaded in ''BakuryuuSentaiAbaranger'': The ''Parasaurolopus'' Bakuryuu, having travelled from its native Dino-Earth to our Earth, ends up in South America and must swim to [[TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse Japan]] where the others are. When he arrives he speaks perfect Japanese, but with the occasional "amigo" and the like thrown in for gags.

** [[CriticalResearchFailure The majority of humans do not speak Mandarin Chinese.]] Mandarin has the ''most native speakers'', but more people speak English than speak Mandarin. Even English isn't spoken by anything ''close'' to the majority of humans (1.125 billion is markedly less than half the human population).

* The 2009 ''[[{{V-2009}} V]]'' reboot solves this problem in two ways. First it shows the the Visitors using some sort of universal translator, as in their introduction when their leader Anna's address is seen being broadcast across the entire planet and can be audibly heard in the local language of wherever its being seen. Also, [[spoiler:Visitor sleeper agents have been living on Earth for decades prior to the arrival of Anna's fleet in order to gather intelligence on humanity and learn Earth's languages in preparation for the arrival]].

*** The Greek alphabet (alpha, beta, gamma, delta, etc) also appears in various instances in the EU. The appearance of Greek letters in-universe was eventually explained as being called the Tionese alphabet.

** Alan Moore also played with this in ''TopTen'', where alien liason Mr. Quex-Ur has very clumsy syntax and overall seems like he just took his first English class yesterday.

As unlikely as it may seem, most alien species [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin can speak English]] -- or [[TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse Japanese]], or French, or whatever the language of the show's producers and intended demographic is. This has the added advantage that the characters can sometimes lapse into their native tongue when the [[PardonMyKlingon script demands]].

* {{Hand Wave|d}} in ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1'' by the Babelfish, a very small organism that went into your ear and read brainwaves to act as a universal translator.

* {{Justified|Trope}} in ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1'' by the Babelfish, a very small organism that went into your ear and read brainwaves to act as a universal translator.

* Averted in Machinima/RedVsBlue, where Crunchbite the alien (actually a Covenant Elite) only speaks an alien language. The only person who can understand him is Andy the bomb. If Crunchbite does understand English, it's not very well.

* For some reason, intergalactic demons from ''Manga/DragonBall Z'' seem to speak impeccable Japanese, although at times, various aliens speak their native tongue, such as Frieza, though it makes you wonder why they choose to speak Japanese in the first place. The Namekians also have their own native language, as one of the village elders speaks it to try and confuse Frieza, although Frieza is well aware of the fact that he can speak Japanese. Also, the Namekian dragon can only be released by a password spoken in Namekian and [[LanguageOfMagic wishes can only be made in the Namekian language]]. This is made more confusing by the fact that the Dragon itself speaks normal Japanese.

** ''DragonballAbridged'' plays with this just like everything else, stating that English is the universal language. They also fix the issue with Porunga by having him speak only Namekian (which sounds suspiciously like Klingon), though he is later taught English to make granting wishes more convenient for the heroes.

* ''{{The Lord of the Rings}}'' is a bit of a mix with this. Obviously justified in that the audience will only understand it if it's in English, but there are still some inconsistencies:

* The Star Wars fanfilms TROOPS and IMPS both avert the trope by having various aliens speak in their own language while the stormtroopers speak English/Basic.

* What with how common the "Humans in Equestria" plot is in MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic fanfiction is, this is fairly common. However, as time goes on, aversions and subversions become more common. Sometimes spoken language is perfectly understandable, but the written word seems to follow a different alphabet, following the show. Sometimes some sort of language spell is employed, or if you have a "first contact" type story, you do see the ponies and humans over-coming the language barrier.

Sometimes this is a case of TranslatorMicrobes or the TranslationConvention, where the aliens are logically assumed to be speaking their own language and the words are getting translated en route (and [[FridgeLogic any questions]] of why their lip movements should synch with their ''translated'' dialogue instead of [[HongKongDub syncing with their original tongue]] can [[BellisariosMaxim be simply ignored]]). On the other hand, sometimes the aliens really ''did'' learn to speak English -- hey, if they've been [[AliensStealCable watching our television shows all this time]], they could have easily figured it out by now.