History Main / MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels

* PlayedForDrama in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLTN-MAGFp8 this]] PublicServiceAnnouncement from the UK. A young woman from Eastern Europe is trying to buy groceries and go about other tasks of daily life but instead makes lewd propositions and offers of sex due to her poor command of English. This costs her a job interview. The WhamShot shows that was a former SexSlave and the only English words she knew were related to [[TheOldestProfession prostitution]].

** In another episode, the Earth is invaded by an armada from an alien species that have no ears and communicate by dancing. Fry and Bender try to negotiate with the aliens by doing a "dance of peace," but their dancing ends up translating to "We will kill you and dishonor your widows by making them gather wood."

* ''Fanfic/HarryPotterAndTheBoilingIsles'': It takes awhile for Harry to get a handle on Beast-tongue (somehow giving a particularly impressive ClusterFBomb while trying to ask about the weather), while Ron's efforts at Spanish are likewise gibberish.

* Another anecdote dates from World War 2; supposedly the Dutch military and later [[LaResistance Resistance]] ferreted out German spies by asking them to pronounce the name of the beach resort Scheveningen. Dutch speakers tend to pronounce the "sch" cluster with the grating "ch" sound of the Scottish "loch" (or even use a full-on "k" sound) and also drop the the final "-en", whereas German speakers tend to pronounce it like the English "sh" and leave on the "-en".

* Website/YouTube's automatic captions feature frequently has this effect, especially when it makes a wrong guess as to what language is being spoken. Then having it translate what it comes up with into your own language just makes things worse. For example, in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVANkxUf19Q&feature=endscreen this Lucky Star clip,]] it thinks that the characters are speaking Italian instead of Japanese.

* Steve Martin did a routine where he goes to France and discovers, to his horror, that they speak French there. (They have a different word for everything.) Eventually he learns a single French phrase, "omelette du fromage", which means "cheese omelette". He finally gets a chance to use it in a restaurant, and this happens:

* In a crossover between ''ComicBook/BigTroubleInLittleChina'' and ''Film/EscapeFromNewYork'', a police officer decides to pull in Snake Plissken to help with a problem and uses a spell written in Mandarin. He pulls it off, but not only does he drag in Snake, he also brings in Jack Burton. It's handwaved by saying that Snake and Jake are the same guy in other dimensions. Wonderful thing ActorAllusion is.

--->Kris: (In English) Yes, we will because (in French) my legs are short and I have no knees.
--->Guy: I fear for your mind.
* During a roleplaying game in ''WebVideo/TheGamersLive,'' Klepty (Cass's character) attempts to speak to some goblins in their native language. According to Gary's translations, he actually says, "Wow, aren't my pants shiny?" and "It itches down there."

--->'''Donut''': "¡Yo comio un lapiz!" ("I ate a pencil!")

Dork Diaries: In Tales From a Not-So-Posh Paris Adventure, Nikki tries to order coffee, but says "I'd like you to smell my feet" in French at a Paris café.

* Another false cognate: 'excitado' does not translate to "excited," it means "aroused."

** In "[[Recap/FuturamaS1E1SpacePilot3000 Space Pilot 3000]]", Zoidberg attempts to test Fry's health by having him say something in his language. Fry, not knowing said language, tries anyway, and says ''something'' [[YourMom that evidently didn't sit well]].

* An [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEuh17Uik7k ad for the language-learning app FluentU]] compares a man, Dave, attempting to apply knowledge he obtained from language-learning books and a woman, Cindy, who learned the language through [=FluentU=]. While Cindy is doing well because she's been watching media in the local language, poor Dave is far less successful because he's only been taught "boring grammar and phrases he would never use", and he ends up unwittingly insulting several people.

--->'''Zoidberg:''' What? My mother was a saint! GetOut!

* ChatGPT, the AI heard around the world, is prounounced as "Chat, j'ai pété" in French. Which means "Cat, I farted." Imagine how silly AI news sounds when very serious news readers say, "Cat, I farted", over and over again!

* Jokingly played with on the third episode of ''Series/{{Benson}}''. The titular character is covering for the president of a fictional country(who happens to be in the hospital recovering from a poisoning attempt that morning.) A government official who thinks he's addressing the actual President tells Benson what he thinks is the saying for "Thank you very much." Benson, not knowing a lick of the real thing, makes it up on the spot that the way the guy just phrased it, "It was an insult to my mother."

* ''Series/{{Bones}}''; in the Season 8 episode "The Bod in the Pod" Iranian-born intern Arastoo Vasiri wrote a love poem in Farsi [[spoiler: to Cam, who is now secretly dating Vasiri]]. Hodgins ran a few lines of the poem [[BlindIdiotTranslation through a translation program]], getting such lines as "You're my carburetor," "Bacon is silent. Listen to all that we scrub!" and, finally, a line that compares the moon to "a testicle in the firmament."

** In [[https://garfield.com/comic/2019/04/24 the April 24, 2019 strip]], the chained dog tries to learn cat language, and demonstrates what he learned so far to Garfield. Garfield's response: "You just asked for directions to the pipe wrench."

** In ''[[https://garfield.com/comic/2019/04/24 the April 24, 2019 strip]], the chained dog tries to learn cat language, and demonstrates what he learned so far to Garfield. Garfield's response: "You just asked for directions to the pipe wrench."

* During the ComicBook/CivilWar, Ben "The Thing" Grimm obtained asylum in France, becoming Paris' first superhero. He wondered why the bad guys would burst into laughter when he turned up at crime scenes shouting "C'EST LE TEMPS DE FOUTRER!" until a helpful gendarme explained that what he was saying was quite unrepeatable; after a quick French lesson he changed it to "C'EST LE FOIS A BATTRER! (IT'S CLOBBERING TIME!)"

** When Mystery, Inc. go to Italy, Fred continually manages to misread his perfectly legitimate phrasebook, causing him to do things like requesting to rent a car that can outrace a flying hamster and ordering a potted plant at a restaurant.
** In an episode in Greece, he misread again when trying to figure out what a man who was chasing them was shouting. (Unfortunately, the phrasebook had "The Greek gods shall bring chaos into your lives!" right under [[spoiler: "I'm trying to return your purse!"]] ). Later, he tries to thank a shaman for his sage advice. It ends up being, "Thanks for your wise words of ostrich."

** In ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheMonsterOfMexico'', Fred's Spanish speaking leaves something to be desired, though he usually gets most words right. Unfortunately, the few he gets wrong are enough to turn the sentence into gibberish (e.g., "thank you for your wise words of ostrich"). [[spoiler:Ironically, he's much more well-versed in Spanish ''grammar'', as he manages to figure out a major clue from a threat written in Spanish containing an error a native wouldn't have made, meaning that their culprit likely doesn't speak Spanish.]]