History Main / PoirotSpeak

* In ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'', recognizable words in the French and German dialogue are occasionally reproduced untranslated in the subtitles, producing a PoirotSpeak-like effect even though the characters are speaking entirely in their own languages. It actually comes off more like GratuitousGerman, since it's mostly just words like "wunderbar," "mein Führer," "ja," or "nein."

* Eduardo from ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'' uses about as many Spanish words as someone learns in grade school, often uses grammar that wouldn't be appropriate for English ''or'' Spanish ("No es crybaby!"), and calls Bloo "Azul". Strangely, when first introduced he spoke complete sentences in Spanish and seemed to have a hard time saying anything in English, but changed to PoirotSpeak before the pilot even ended.

** In Spanish, there is a false friend of this trope where the scientific term is indeed translated, then abbreviated through Spanish grammar to sound just like PoirotSpeak. ADN is DNA, for example, from ácido desoxirribonucleico, from deoxyribonucleic acid.

* Zer Germans of ''Script/AHDotComTheSeries'' use a combination of this an FunetikAksent. {{Lampshaded}}, as this is said to be a side effect of the Stereotypica Virus that ravaged their world.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheInspector'' cartoons from Creator/DePatieFrelengEnterprises, The Inspector (an {{Expy}} for [[Franchise/ThePinkPanther 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 RunningGag, often says "sí", to the Inspector's irritation. This was phased out in later cartoons, possibly due to PoliticalCorrectness.

* The UsefulNotes/EnglishPremierLeague attracts a lot of foreign players and it is interesting to contrast those who learn English and then move, with those who move then learn English. The former usually speak English with an accent - either their native or American, while the latter often acquire some of the dialect local to the club they play for. A particular treat is a player who was exposed to some English at home but hasn't yet taken formal lessons and is picking up stuff from teammates and listening to the crowd. It incorporates this trope for their general utterances mingled with odd phrases in a broad local accent when talk turns to actually describing football.

* Due to the popularity of India-based outsourcing, this is quite common in the IT industry, particularly the US and Great Britain. Typically, it's an English vocabulary combined with Hindi grammar and idiomatic usage. The degree to which the trope applies depends on how fluent the speaker is in English. On the extreme non-fluent end, it often ends up with a collection of English words arranged in an almost incomprehensible (to a non-Hindi speaker) structure.

* All of the foreign ''WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}'' added to be minorities: Samurai, Apache Chief, and El Dorado.
** They were [[UnfortunateImplications really insulting]], by the way.
** Seanbaby goes into humorous detail about just how stupid this was on his [[http://seanbaby.com/superfriends/eldorado.htm webpage]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'': 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 PardonMyKlingon with her use of untranslatable Tamaranian words in numerous contexts.

** While most Latin-derived\Romance languages are equal, Portuguese and Spanish are an egregious example - given Spain is Portugal's only neighbor, and [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg not counting Suriname and the Guyanas,]] both Spain and Portugal colonized all of South America. There's even the Brazilian equivalent of Spanglish, "Portunhol".

* Played with in ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}''. The characters are presumably speaking French, and TranslationConvention renders their dialogue as English which is grammatically perfect but, for the majority of the characters, [[JustAStupidAccent French-accented]]. The French-accented characters delve into it a bit, such as using the French pronunciation of "Paris" and saying ''oui'' rather than yes. Colette in particular has an odd tic of not using plurals, as if the "s" in the plural noun is the silent letter at the end of a French word.
* A later Pixar film, ''WesternAnimation/{{Coco}}'', does something similar to ''Ratatouille'' with its Mexican setting: the characters' English is perfect but accented, both the Spanish and English pronunciations of "Mexico" are heard, and we get moments like Miguel being offered another helping of food and responding first "''No gracias''" and then "''Si''". Unlike ''Ratatouille'', which used very few French phrases, Spanish phrases are heavily used throughout, to the point that you could say the entire film is in Spanglish.

* ''VideoGame/FarCry6'': The game has developed a bit of a reputation for this. There's a lot of GratituousSpanish interspersing regular conversation while TranslationConvention is assumed for most of the game (given Dani speaks both English as well as Spanish).

--> '''The Inspector:''' "Don't say sí. Say oui."
--> '''Deux-Deux:''' "Sí, Inspector."

** It is not just a way to hide swear words from parents. Swear words loaned from another language (read: English) tend to have much less emotional impact than their translation in the native language. This makes it easier to throw in a "shit" in the presence of other people, as opposed to a native swear word. Add [[GreaterInternetFuckwadTheory internet anonymity]] and otherwise normal kids will [[FlameWar call you a "retard"]] for making a mistake in a video game.

* This is also the case in places in East Asia who are making strong attempts to integrate English into their schools and workplaces. The result is "Konglish" (Korean/English), "Japanglish" (Japanese/English) or "Chinglish" (Chinese/English).

* A meta example: This trope is endemic among anime fanfic writers who have picked up a handful of basic Japanese words. Some writers will never deign to use English words like "Yes," "Thank you," or "Good morning," because [[FanDumb you aren't an anime fan unless you know basic Japanese]]. This is particularly jarring when you ''do'' know basic Japanese, the author doesn't, and they [[BlindIdiotTranslation try to use Japanese that they haven't learned yet]].

* ''Naruto'' fanfic writers love to use the word "teme" '''horribly''' wrong, based on a couple of lines in canon where Naruto says, "Sasuke, temee..." "Temee" is a hostile equivalent to the pronoun "you" (as in "''[[CurseCutShort yooooouuuuuu.....]]''"), though frequently fansubbed as "you bastard." Fanfic writers assume that it just means "bastard," and you see the nonsense phrase "the teme" or "that teme" all over fanfic. Also, it's not a (dis)honorific as in "Sasuke-teme," but you see ''that'' everywhere too.
** The above goes for ''onore'' and ''kisama'' in many fandoms.
** Also sometimes there Naruto-dobe
** And they're convinced that Kit and Vixen are Japanese.
* [[Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers Hetalia]] has this in a lot of fanfiction. Most common examples are Japan, Russia, France, and Germany.
* Replacing the "God" in sentences such as "Oh my God" with "Kami" is quite popular, and quite wrong: a lot of spirits that are nowhere near capital-G-God-tier, or even the lower tiers of Olympus, are called ''kami''.

* Another meta example: Poirot Speak can apply to invented languages as well. Fanfiction of Tolkien's Middle Earth works is often liberally sprinkled with "mae govannen"s and "mellon nin"s uttered by Elvish or Elvish-speaking characters in otherwise English conversations - largely going against the grain of Tolkien's own very deliberate language usage, especially if the whole conversation is conducted in Elvish in-universe.

** To top the MindScrew even further, the Israei Arab doctor's ''Jewish'' colleagues will actually use "arterial'noye davleniye", "vnutrivennoye", and "rak legkih" - the reason being that 90% of Israeli doctors are either Arab or immigrants from the former Soviet Union,

* Naruto fanfic writers love to use the word "teme" '''horribly''' wrong, based on a couple of lines in canon where Naruto says, "Sasuke, temee..." "Temee" is a hostile equivalent to the pronoun "you" (as in "''[[CurseCutShort yooooouuuuuu.....]]''"), though frequently fansubbed as "you bastard." Fanfic writers assume that it just means "bastard," and you see the nonsense phrase "the teme" or "that teme" all over fanfic. Also, it's not a (dis)honorific as in "Sasuke-teme," but you see ''that'' everywhere too.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''Webcomic/StringTheory'': Dr. Orville von Schtein's speech is sprinkled with bits of German.

** Unless you learned swearing mostly from movies, music, the internet and other kinds of anglophone cultural export. Also, teens absorb this kind of English language pop culture right when they start rebelling against their parents' "no swearing" policies, and the parents often won't understand a hissed "Shit!", so you get away with it more easily. Words like "fuck" and "shit" and pretty much all kinds of sexual terms seem ''much'' less offensive than the equivalent words in languages like German. Some media actually [[ForeignCussWord uses this]] as a form of GettingCrapPastTheRadar. In ''Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGarterbelt'', for example, almost all swears spoken are in English rather than Japanese - the censors didn't mind, but the intended audience would know what they meant.

* ComicBook/DeKiekeboes: See the line above.
* ComicBook/{{Jommeke}}: See the line above.

** Used frequently in [[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/124263/1/songs-uncle-sings/sineva Songs Uncle Sings]], ''FanFic/RacerAndTheGeek'', [[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/109581/1/i-did-not-want-to-die/i-did-not-want-to-die I Did Not Want To Die]], and [[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/106068/1/relax/intimacy Relax.]]

* In the chapters of Fanfic/LightAndDarkTheAdventuresOfDarkYagami that take place in Paris, the characters use French pronouns, vaguely French verb constructions and occasionally French words while speaking (mostly) English.

* [[Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia Hetalia]] has this in a lot of fanfiction. Most common examples are Japan, Russia, France, and Germany.

* FanFic/TheSonOfTheEmperor is a bit of a peculiar example. While French and German words are mixed into dialogue written in English, this mostly done to convey the fact that the characters are speaking in those languages and not in English.
* When FanFic/{{Retsuraed}} did an {{MST}} of the rather obscure fanfic 'When [[WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures Fifi]] met [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog Tails]]', besides the use of GratuitousFrench for the rare few words that were actually used correctly, the authors seemed to think that French people pronounce their "Y"s as "V"s and add random "Z"s at the end of almost every word. As [=XxSuperDriverxX=] put it...

* In the multi-ethnic MultinationalTeam of ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'', only [[ChummyCommies Linka]] occasionally spouted Russian exclamations. How she (or any of the others on the team) learned English in the first place is left unexplained.

** To make matters worse and in line with this trope, some people learn Indonesian alongside their ethnic/native language, and unconsciously pepper their standard Indonesian with local equivalents, such as Javanese, Sundanese, Bataknese, Minang, etc., simply because that's the word they understand. It's more apparent in the capital, Jakarta, as many less-than-polite words used are just those words''translated into another language'', since Indonesian is ''so'' simple that it lacked profanity.

** And sometimes justified in that there ''is no'' official translation from the German/Latin/Greek/English word, or, alternatively, that the official translation is to leave it as it is. It happens with foreign words in English as well - a few examples of untranslated foreign words in English scientific vocabulary would be "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremsstrahlung bremsstrahlung]]" in physics (German for "braking radiation", but the German word is used untranslated) or, also of German origin, "eigenvector" and "eigenvalue" ("Eigenvektor" and "Eigenwert" in German) in mathematics, which do not refer to a mathematician called Eigen (as some people mistakenly assume), but simply mean "own vector" / "own value". That happens for non-scientific vocabulary as well, of course, such as "tsunami" rapidly replacong "tidal wave" after December 26th, 2004.

* This is generally not all that uncommon for the average[[note]]Above a certain level of skill, you can start to ''think'' in the second language as fluently and holistically as your first, and pretty much none of this applies any more.[[/note]] speaker of foreign language. Certain common standard words are so ingrained in your speech patterns that it can be hard to drop them without conscious effort when using them in casual speech, ranging from words like "thanks" or "bye" to swearing. Generally the more surprised you are, [[ReflexiveResponse the more likely you are to respond in your native tongue]] regardless of the surroundings. The most obvious example is probably when a startle causes you swear: it is nearly impossible not to slip into your native language when doing it and, conversely, swearing in a different language requires a conscious effort for which you don't have time when startled.

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/XMen https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nightcrawler_1.png]]]]

%% Image and caption kept on page per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1381181733087148600

[[quoteright:346:[[Webcomic/VGCats https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/healings.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:346:''[[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 "I am ze Übermensch!"]]'']]