History Main / PoirotSpeak

* Mr. Bobinsky in ''WesternAnimation/{{Coraline}} throws random Russian words into his dialogue now and then, much to the confusion of Coraline.

* Manny Calavera from ''VideoGame/GrimFandango'' does this, along with a few other characters.

* HunterOfMonsters Yukie Oogami in ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' is intended to speak in broken English with Japanese interjections. Unfortunately, the voice actor reads the Japanese words and pronunciation notes in a thoroughly American accent.

* Named for Detective ''Literature/HerculePoirot'', who spoke this way as part of his FunnyForeigner facade. Hercule speaks perfect English at the end of each story [[TheSummation as he explains step-by-step how he solved the case]]. Other characters and the detective himself have commented on it. Poirot is in fact something of a subversion, as he uses his accent to disarm suspects, making them think he's only a FunnyForeigner when it's really "[[ObfuscatingStupidity just an act]]". From ''Literature/ThreeActTragedy'':

* Marlene and Petite, the West German and French members of ''Comicbook/JetDream and her Stunt-Girl Counterspies'', fit this trope.

* ''Series/{{MADtv}}'' has a recurring sketch of well-known American TV shows "dubbed" into Spanish; they use English sentence structure, and words that the average American wouldn't recognize are simply said in English. ("Pero Jack, si Sr. Roper sabe que tu eres heterosexual, él va a evict-te.")

* Welsh-language soap opera ''PobolYCym'' is capable of making purist Welsh-speakers wince. Set vaguely in south-west Wales and using actors and actresses whose command of Welsh is variable, the script can be liberally peppered with loan-words from English - often to such an extent that non-Welsh speakers can, with an effort, pick up the plot and gain an understanding of what's going on. Virtually all Welsh verbs are regular and end in the suffix "-io". This makes it easy for a learner or one with a limited vocabulary (or an actor losing the script) to make a recognisable verb by taking an English word and adding "-io" to the end. PYC does this ''a lot'' even when perfectly good Welsh words exist for things and concepts. The show justifies this by saying it has a hidden educational function, to make the Welsh language accessible to learners. Speakers of "purer" Welsh dialects, ie from North Wales, tend to shake their heads despairingly.

* There is also a series of books full of the mistakes Dutch people have made whilst trying to speak English, but while still using Dutch words/grammar. This stems from the fact that English and Dutch are related, and share many of the same words. Sometimes words ''sound'' familiar, but mean something slightly different, but hilarious, or something different entirely. It also comments on the fact that a lot of Dutch people literally translate Dutch proverbs into English. Which is not restricted to Dutch speakers. Most people who are comparatively fluent in a foreign language, but are not native speakers (or native speaker equivalents, if e.g. they learned the second language at a very young age), tend to have trouble with idioms, proverbs and the like. Even if their command of the foreign language in question is quite good, proverbs are frequently translated word-for-word.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'': The animated series, at least, uses this for Starfire in the stilted but understandable version. She also adds articles (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.
** The fact that Starfire does this is [[FridgeLogic even more vexing]], considering her entire understanding of the English language stems from a direct psychic download from a native speaker, meaning she should have instant and near-perfect understanding of the language. The ''only'' words from her own language she should be using are ones without direct translations.

See YouNoTakeCandle (and its subtrope TontoTalk) for cases where foreigners consistently talk with very poor grammar and lack of vocabulary. See also GratuitousForeignLanguage and AsLongAsItSoundsForeign, wherein nobody's supposed to understand ''any'' of the words. Compare and contrast EloquentInMyNativeTongue. Not to be confused with "[[TalkLikeAPirate Pirate Speak]]" written with a FunetikAksent.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'': Scandinavians Skwisgaar (Swedish) and Toki (Norwegian) don't use many words from their native languages, but often [[AccentUponTheWrongSyllable mangle their pronunciation of English words]] and frequently lapse into Main/Pluralses, which is TruthInTelevision for many Nordic language speakers.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'': Scandinavians Skwisgaar (Swedish) and Toki (Norwegian) don't use many words from their native languages, but often [[AccentUponTheWrongSyllable mangle their pronunciation of English words]] and frequently [[Main/Pluralses refers to singulars objects in plurals terms]], which is TruthInTelevision for many Nordic language speakers.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'': Scandinavians Skwisgaar (Swedish) and Toki (Norwegian) don't use many words from their native languages, but often [[AccentUponTheWrongSyllable mangle their pronunciation of English words]] and frequently [[Pluralses refers to singulars objects in plurals terms]], which is TruthInTelevision for many Nordic language speakers.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'': Scandinavians Skwisgaar (Swedish) and Toki (Norwegian) don't use many words from their native languages, but often [[AccentUponTheWrongSyllable mangle their pronunciation of English words]] and frequently[[Pluralses refers to singulars objects in plurals terms]], which is TruthInTelevision for many Nordic language speakers.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'': Scandinavians Skwisgaar (Swedish) and Toki (Norwegian) don't use many words from their native languages, but often [[AccentUponTheWrongSyllable mangle their pronunciation of English words]] and frequently talk in Pluralses, which is TruthInTelevision for many Nordic language speakers.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'': Scandinavians Skwisgaar (Swedish) and Toki (Norwegian) don't use many words from their native languages, but often [[AccentUponTheWrongSyllable mangle their pronunciation of English words]] and sometimes [[Pluralses slips into using plurals where nones am necessarys]], which is TruthInTelevision for many Nordic language speakers.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'': Scandinavians Skwisgaar (Swedish) and Toki (Norwegian) don't use many words from their native languages, but often [[AccentUponTheWrongSyllable mangle their pronunciation of English words]] and sometimes [[StrangeSyntaxSpeaker slips into using plurals where nones am necessarys]], which is TruthInTelevision for many Nordic language speakers.

* ''WesternAnimation/Metalocalypse'': Scandinavians Skwisgaar (Swedish) and Toki (Norwegian) don't use many words from their native languages, but often [[AccentUponTheWrongSyllable mangle their pronunciation of English words]] and sometimes [[StrangeSyntaxSpeaker slips into using plurals where nones am necessarys]], which is TruthInTelevision for many Nordic language speakers.

* Amano Pikamee, of Music/VOMSProject, has a bilingual history: while a native Japanese speaker, she is [[ButNotTooForeign half-American]] and lived in "Virtual Texas" for a time. While her English is [[SurprisinglyGoodEnglish mostly fluent]], she has a handful of VerbalTic[=s=] wherein she slips Japanese into her English, such as describing situations as "Yabai" (dangerous) or ending sentences with "dayo" (a sentence-ender that adds emphasis like an exclamation mark).

* Amano Pikamee, of Music/VOMSProject, has a bilingual history: while a native Japanese speaker, she is [[ButNotTooForeign half-American]] and lived in "Virtual Texas" for a time. While her English is [[SurprisinglyGoodEnglish mostly fluent]], she has a handful of VerbalTic[=s=] wherein she slips Japanese into her English, such as describing situations as "Yabai" (dangerous) or ending sentences with "dayo" (a sentence-ender that adds emphasis like an exclamation mark).

* Amano Pikamee, of WebVideo/VOMSProject, has a bilingual history: while a native Japanese speaker, she is [[ButNotTooForeign half-American]] and lived in "Virtual Texas" for a time. While her English is [[SurprisinglyGoodEnglish mostly fluent]], she has a handful of VerbalTic[=s=] wherein she slips Japanese into her English, such as describing situations as "Yabai" (dangerous) or ending sentences with "dayo" (a sentence-ender that adds emphasis like an exclamation mark).

* Music/PDQBach's "Four Next-To-Last Songs" have lyrics in "Deunglish," a mixture of German and English. There's also the "Blaues Gras" cantata, which has some very American English idioms translated into German word for word.

* Gott und Himmel! War comics, especially titles like ''ComicBook/{{Commando}}'' and StockParodies thereof, tend to ramp this UpToEleven, especially for ThoseWackyNazis, Englander Pigdogs.

* All of the ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein'' sequels embody this trope to an ear-torturing extent. The original Wolfenstein 3D actually featured Nazis speaking German. The sequels are a mix of horribly accented English with a few simple German words throw in like jawohl, achtung, etc.

* ''ComicBook/XMen'' is fond of this, with its many, many foreign characters dropping in words of their own language all the time, mainly through Creator/ChrisClaremont's influence as the one who turned the X-Men into a global team. As accents can be heard, this tends to be absent from adaptations (of course, the ''movies'' drop the ''accents'' for everyone but Creator/AlanCumming's Nightcrawler... whose German is not convincing at all even to non-native speakers of German).
** Sometimes also with non-foreign characters; ComicBook/{{Gambit}} lapsed into something vaguely like French at the drop of a hat.[[note]]He's Cajun, i.e., from an area of the U.S. that was originally a French colony and still has strong traces of French culture.[[/note]]
** According to legend, Austrians who saw the movie would exclaim something like "Oh my god! We don't actually sound like that... Do we?"
** The parody comic ''ComicStrip/TwistedToyfareTheatre'' likes to get a lot of laughs at the X-Men's expense by mocking this. The X-Men's gratuitous foreign words will usually have humorously inaccurate translations in {{footnote|Fever}}s; as an example, Nightcrawler's "Ja und splichist!" was translated as "I'm German." It should be noted that "splichist" isn't even a word in ''any language''.
** It does not help that writers and letterers frequently misspell the German words they use ++ sometimes creating unintentional humour, e. g. with Nightcrawler addressing a lady as "Leibchen" (bodice or vest; presumably they were aiming for "Liebchen", dear or darling) -- or translating English expressions into German word for word, resulting in phrases that either don't exist or have a significantly different meaning than the intended one.
* The modern Vladek Spiegelman in ''ComicBook/{{Maus}}'' speaks in the "foreign grammar, English vocabulary" variant, making this TruthInTelevision unless the author, his son, was using artistic license.
* In ''ComicBook/StrontiumDog'', the presumably Norwegian Wulf uses ''der'' for ''the'' (though in Norwegian 'the' is a suffix to the noun, not a standalone word before it), and ''ja'' for ''yes''. His sentence structure also varies between sensible and Yoda-like.
* ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}'' comics include Johann Krauss, who is capable of explaining doctorate-level concepts in English. However, he routinely responds to questions with "Ja" or "Nein."

* Starfire's ''narration'' slips into Tamaranean when she's attacked in Issue #4 of ''ComicBook/RedHoodAndTheOutlaws. She also [[spoiler:pronounces the name "Richard" as though it were Tamaranean at the end of the issue]].
* ComicBook/SuskeEnWiske: All foreign characters mix Dutch with loan words from their own language.

* ComicStrip/{{Nero}}: The character Meneer Pheip mixes Dutch and French language all the time!
* Used to delineate Roman speech from Gaulish speech in ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}''. Both mostly talk normally, but Romans drop in Latin phrases and words and use normal idioms with HoldYourHippogriffs Latin words substituted in. The Iberians speak like this too, adding in 'ay yai yai' and 'olé' in their otherwise normal speech. The most obvious example, however, is the Britons in the original French version, who speak in a garbled form of French that uses English-ish grammar (Obelix asks "why are you talking backwards?"), literally translated English idioms ("Bonté gracieuse!"), stereotypical second-language mistakes (using 'vous' instead of 'tu' with family members, mixing up genders) and plays on French people trying to learn English (tortured idioms and "mon tailleur est riche", a reference to the bizarre and famous first sentence spoken on the ''Assimil: English sans Peine'' language learning vinyls ubiquitous in France in the 1960s).
* ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'' villain Jaeger constantly talks with a heavy German accent with the occasional bit of German slipped in. This helps clarify that Jaeger really is German since he's very good at avoiding capture and his actual name and background remain hidden from the authorities and the readers for years.

* A ConLang-based example in ''Fanfic/TheParselmouthOfGryffindor'', where the Alizor King sprinkles his speech with Alizor interjections (and [[PardonMyKlingon curses]]) but does not really grasp English ''grammar'', constantly dropping pronouns for one thing.

* ''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.

* In ''Fanfic/ChrysalisVisitsTheHague'', many human characters, but the Swiss Estermann in particular, like to lapse back into their native language when things get excited or stressful. This is probably done to remind the reader that they are ''actually'' averting TranslationConvention.

* ''WebVideo/MyLittlePonyTheMentallyAdvancedSeries'' has Pinkie. No one really knows what that accent is 'supposed' to be, but her speech is liberally peppered with "Yes"es and inverted syntax. "He thinks he is in the out field where he is safe from getting strikes, but Pinkie has fooled him! [[VerbalTic Yes.]]"

* 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.

* ''Film/MurderOnTheOrientExpress1974'': In a rather meta version of this trope, Poirot himself sniffs out a suspect's deception based on their reliance on this tendency to make themselves look, in their own words, 'backwards'. They pepper their speech with Swedish behind a heavy accent, but have no trouble understanding the word 'Emolument'. Takes one to know one, it seems.[[note]]YMMV: in her line of work (charitable fundraising), she might have good reason to know what emoluments are.[[/note]]
* ''Film/StreetAngel'': The story takes place in Italy, and there's a healthy dose of lines like "Si, si, Mama! I will be back soon with the medicine.".
* A classic film example is Inspector Clouseau from the ''Franchise/ThePinkPanther'' movies, expertly played by Peter Sellers. Subversion: Clouseau's horrendous (and fake) French accent was so thick the French characters in the movies had moments where they could not understand him. Several of the jokes are actually based on people '''expecting''' him to speak like this: for example, he says English ''room'' like the French ''rhume'' (cold [the virus])...
* The whispering among the Frenchmen in ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'' is full of this. When they are about to DropTheCow, the order is whispered in Franglais: "Fetchez la vache!". Later when they bring in the [[ItMakesSenseInContext Trojan Rabbit]], they cannot understand each other in French and have to switch to English: "C'est un lapin, lapin de bois. Quoi? Un cadeau. What? A present. Oh, un cadeau."
* In ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'', recognizable words in the French and German dialogue are occasionally reproduced untranslated in the subtitles, producing a Poirot Speak-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."

* Inverted in ''Film/TheTerminal''. When Viktor Navorski is beginning to grasp the English language, he usually uses English words for basic pronouns, prepositions, etc., but falls back to Krakhozhian when referring to more specific things - like mustard.
* Dominique from ''Film/{{DEBS}}''
-->'''Janet:''' "You need to speak English or French. Frenglish is not a language."

* In ''Literature/JohannesCabalTheNecromancer'', Cabal is German-born but lived most of his life in England-he's stated to have a very mild accent which isn't written phonetically, so the only time this shows up is when he's particularly stressed and swears in German or uses very common phrases like "du lieber gott". However, Cabal is also a necromancer so when he really swears he dips into dead, inhuman languages that are that much more vitriolic.
* Named for Detective Literature/HerculePoirot, who spoke this way as part of his FunnyForeigner facade. Hercule speaks perfect English at the end of each story [[TheSummation as he explains step-by-step how he solved the case]]. Other characters and the detective himself have commented on it. Poirot is in fact something of a subversion, as he uses his accent to disarm suspects, making them think he's only a FunnyForeigner when it's really "[[ObfuscatingStupidity just an act]]". From ''Literature/ThreeActTragedy'':
-->'''Poirot:''' I will explain. It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say – a foreigner – he can’t even speak English properly. It is not my policy to terrify people – instead I invite their gentle ridicule.

* There are a trilogy of books by Creator/MilesKington, entitled "Let's Parler Franglais", "Let's Parler Franglais Again" and "Let's Parler Franglais Une More Temps", which teach a mangled version of French of this type (for comedy but presented as serious language lessons). Franglais is described as "The language you can speak if you know English and O-Level (Middle School) French".
* P. J. O'Rourke's "Fake French in Nine (Neuf) Easy Lessons" is another instructional text on Franglais.
-->"Did I tellez vous about le chemise je trouvez at le Bendel's? C'est ''tres froid''. Mais je ne affordez pas it at all so je chargez a Mama. Now she'll be pissoired a la maximum. Have to frapper les libres now -- examination terminal de la français is demain..."
* There is also a series of books full of the mistakes Dutch people have made whilst trying to speak English, but while still using Dutch words/grammar. This stems from the fact that English and Dutch are related, and share many of the same words. Sometimes words ''sound'' familiar, but mean something slightly different, but hilarious, or something different entirely. It also comments on the fact that a lot of Dutch people literally translate Dutch proverbs into English. Which is not restricted to Dutch speakers. Most people who are comparatively fluent in a foreign language, but are not native speakers (or native speaker equivalents, if e.g. they learned the second language at a very young age), tend to have trouble with idioms, proverbs and the like. Even if their command of the foreign language in question is quite good, proverbs are frequently translated word-for-word.
* Herald Alberich from Creator/MercedesLackey's ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' series routinely speaks Valdemaran with Karsite word order. He was born and raised in Karse and only ended up in Valdemar after being kidnapped/rescued by a [[IntellectualAnimal Companion]], who eventually psychically fed Valdemaran vocabulary into his head... and ''only'' vocabulary, leading Alberich to use Valdemaran words with Karsite grammar.

* Used in ''Literature/TheDaVinciCode'' frequently. The ''second line of dialogue'' after the prologue reads, "Mais monsieur, your guest is an important man." This is representative of most conversations involving non-native English speakers in the book.

* In the novel version of '''[[Film/TwoThousandTenTheYearWeMakeContact 2010]]'' (which portrays rather friendlier Soviet-American relations than the film), the "Russlish" spoken aboard the craft is something of a running joke among the crew of the ''Leonov'', with "STAMP OUT RUSSLISH" posters being mentioned at one point. The American viewpoint character, Heywood Floyd, even mentions speaking to another American (Walter Curnow) in Russian at one point. This is, as noted below, TruthInTelevision: mixtures of Russian and English have proven to become remarkably common in space, where Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts frequently spend months together (first aboard ''Mir'', and now on the ISS), although when the book came out (1982) only one US-USSR joint project (1975's Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, which lasted all of 44 hours) had ever been tried.
* In Eric Flint's ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series, the fictional West Virginian town of Grantville, in the year 2000, is picked up and dropped in the middle of the 30 Years War (in 1631) in the middle of the Germanies. A patois (or pidgin, depending) quickly develops, called "Amideutsch" – "American Deutsch" or "American German". So you have a huge cast of characters who do this so habitually, many readers start doing it in *real life*.

* Hork-Bajir in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' tend to switch between English/whatever the translation is in and their own language, plus the common-language Galard. Later in the series they try to justify this by saying that Hork-Bajir brains are just bad with languages, even when they're under [[PuppeteerParasite Yeerk]] control.
* In the (non-fictional) ''Literature/PlayingTheMoldovansAtTennis'' author Tony Hawks has a bet with his friend that he can beat every member of the Moldovan soccer team in a game of tennis. The friend attempts to trick Tony by substituting the final opponent with a semi-professional who is only pretending to be Moldovan, but the man's use of this trope (mangling simple phrases like 'thank you') is one of the things that tips off Tony that he has been deceived.

* In ''Literature/PortraitInSepia'' Matías Rodríguez de la Cruz travels to Chile to spend his dying days with his family. He speaks Spanish with an odd French-English accent, and is constantly dropping phrases in French in his conversations with Aurora ("You are very young to understand these things, ''ma chère.''"). This trope is not evident in the Spanish edition, but it is in the English translation. It is a {{justified trope}}, as he has spent most of his time overseas.
* Literature/SherlockHolmes uses this to identify the nationality of his client in an early story, not by GratuitousGerman but the sentence construction.
* In Karina Fabian's ''Discovery'', one character notes that the captain tends to slip back to his Jamaican roots when angry. Consequently, although he shows no other signs, we can tell that he's furious when giving certain orders.
* Some of Creator/AmyTan's Chinese immigrant characters speak English this way. Even those who speak it well often throw in Chinese expressions.
* Vogel does this in ''Literature/TheMartian''. He often speaks English with German grammar and throws in things like ''Ja'' or ''Mein Gott!''
* When he appears in the ''Literature/BetsyTacy'' series, Tib's Grosspapa Hornik speaks in a mixture of heavily-accented, jumbled English and perfect German:
---> "Vat tink you of diese Milvaukee?" he asked Betsy. ''"Es ist gemütlich, nicht wahr?"''

* ''Series/{{MADtv}}'' has a recurring sketch of well-known American TV shows "dubbed" into Spanish; they use English sentence structure, and words that the average American wouldn't recognize are simply said in English. ("Pero Jack, si Sr. Roper sabe que tu eres heterosexual, él va a evict-te.")
** [[Series/AllInTheFamily "No soy un meathead!"]]

* [[Series/TheLeagueOfGentlemen Herr Lipp]] manages to mangle virtually every sentence he speaks in such a way that it becomes a DoubleEntendre... made especially funny in that you can never quite tell [[DepravedHomosexual if he's doing it on purpose or not]]. "If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth. Alles klar?"

* Welsh-language soap opera ''PobolYCym'' is capable of making purist Welsh-speakers wince. Set vaguely in south-west Wales and using actors and actresses whose command of Welsh is variable, the script can be liberally peppered with loan-words from English - often to such an extent that non-Welsh speakers can, with an effort, pick up the plot and gain an understanding of what's going on. Virtually all Welsh verbs are regular and end in the suffix "-io". This makes it easy for a learner or one with a limited vocabulary (or an actor losing the script) to make a recognisable verb by taking an English word and adding "-io" to the end. PYC does this ''a lot'' even when perfectly good Welsh words exist for things and concepts. The show justifies this by saying it has a hidden educational function, to make the Welsh language accessible to learners. Speakers of "purer" Welsh dialects, ie from North Wales, tend to shake their heads despairingly.
* Series/{{Blackadder}} manages this on various occasions, such as when he met the UsefulNotes/SpanishInquisition and ran into a translation issue.
--> '''Blackadder''': ''No speako Dago!''
* {{Lampshaded}} on ''Series/ModernFamily'' with Ronaldo, who will replace simple English words with their Spanish equivalents practically every line he speaks, but do so ''inconsistently'', as Mitchell points out in irritation (for instance, he once said "Proposition Ocho" and "fifty gay weddings" in the same sentence). Averted with Gloria, who will use Spanish pet names for her loved ones, but otherwise speaks entirely in English, and Javier.

* Used in ''Theatre/WestSideStory''. The Puerto Ricans speak English among themselves, punctuated with "por favor" and "una poca poca?" And "si" is near-ubiquitous.

* All of the ''Wolfenstein'' sequels embody this trope to an ear-torturing extent. The original Wolfenstein 3D actually featured Nazis speaking German. The sequels are a mix of horribly accented English with a few simple German words throw in like jawohl, achtung, etc.
** The original 1981 ''Castle Wolfenstein'' game notably had the Nazis speaking correct German as well (the C64 manual included a short phrasebook so the player could understand what was being said). At the time digitized voice was quite uncommon in a computer game, and even ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' predated the importing of cinematic values into video games, making this something of an UnbuiltTrope.
*** Speaking of ''Wolfenstein 3D'', in ''VideoGame/WolfensteinIITheNewColossus'', the repurposed GameWithinAGame, ''Wolfstone 3D'', suffers from this: although the credits are in German, the episode titles and outros are in English, with a bit of German here and there.
* Manny Calavera from ''VideoGame/GrimFandango'' does this, along with a few other characters.
* ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' does this ''constantly'', and most conspicuously with Pierre and Harle, the two characters with [[GratuitousFrench faux French]] accents. They even ludicrously use the word ''moi'' for both 'I' and 'me'. This is because the text was actually in standard English, run through an "accent generator" that replaced particular words or word beginnings/endings with others. This allowed the localization team to just translate one line and alter it, rather than translating 44 of them.
* The Russian voices from ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer: Red Alert 2'' had this, with "da" being the most common untranslated word. They mostly got right the Russian habit of missing out "the", however (Russian has no articles).
* ''VideoGame/JeanneDArc'' has Colet, who speaks in a terribly stereotypical French accent. In a game where everyone is already French.

* As the current page image shows, ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2''. The Medic, the Heavy, and The Spy all speak mostly fluent English, but will revert to their native [[{{Fauxreigner}} (]][[FakeNationality ?]][[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign )]] languages for things like "Yes", "Thank you", and the occasional ForeignCussWord.
** As the developers mentioned, this is a part of StylisticSuck.
** The Heavy does this in ''VideoGame/PokerNightAtTheInventory'' by Creator/TelltaleGames. His banter constantly sounds faux-Russian (something like "You have job, yes?").
* ''VideoGame/{{Mercenaries}} 2'' replaced enemies that spoke their native language with English-speakers wielding thick accents. They seemed to know how to say 'explosive' in Spanish... and that was it.
* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' does this with everyone who's not a normal villager. Normal villagers will speak only Spanish (though sometimes what they say doesn't make much sense, due to [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign not-so-good translation]]), but every other native will sometimes slip into a "Señor", for instance, despite being perfectly able to discuss genetic manipulation science in perfect English.
* ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' has this with some of the Hungarian-speaking civilians.

* ''Même les pommes de terre ont des yeux'', a French text adventure for the UsefulNotes/AppleII, has some text mixing French with a Spanish accent with Spanish and English words, mostly in the "Explicassione" setting forth the plot (which has a translation into proper French):
-->"...and los espionos are very nombreux. They got las pupillas partout! Commo las patatas. Buena lucko tout de même amigo."
* The German scientist in the intro to ''U.R.B.A.N. The Cyborg Project''. "This can become eine... grosse problem."
* HunterOfMonsters Yukie Oogami in ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' is intended to speak in broken English with Japanese interjections. Unfortunately, the voice actor reads the Japanese words and pronunciation notes in a thoroughly American accent.
* ''Franchise/DragonAge'': Justified with the elves. The reason they pepper their speech with random elvish words is because that's all they remember. They lost so much when their empire fell, and are desperate to cling onto what little they still have. In [[VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition the third game]], the ancient elves who guard the Well of Sorrows don't bother doing this (with the exception of one or two difficult to translate concepts), since they still remember the language perfectly. [[spoiler:The fact that Solas ''also'' doesn't bother doing it is a hint as to his true nature]].
* A lot of the dialogue in the ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' series is peppered with foreign words, especially in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed2''. Desmond can actually LampShade this in some idle dialogue in the real world segments. He's [[JustifiedTrope given the explanation]] that it's due to lags in the Animus system's [[TranslatorMicrobes translation software]].

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'': The DS remake sees a fair amount of Russian and French sprinkled into the dialogue.
* ''VideoGame/FarCry6'': The game has developed a bit of a reputation for this. There's a lot of GratuitousSpanish interspersing regular conversation while TranslationConvention is assumed for most of the game (given Dani speaks both English as well as Spanish).

* Anja Donlan from ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'' is not a native English speaker. This is shown in one {{Flashback}}, where she makes several grammar mistakes. (By the present day, over a decade later, her English is pretty much perfect.)
-->'''Anja:''' Is so sad. All those figures standing there. Like they waiting for something.
* The [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis]] in ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic''.

* [=DiDi=] from ''Webcomic/MenageA3'' (a French Canadian living in Montreal) switches regularly between French and English. Unlike most examples, her French is not necessarily words that most English speakers would already know, and they aren't subtitled, so it takes context clues to figure it out if none of the other characters say anything that translates it. Theoretically, reading this comic should improve your knowledge of French.
-->'''Tess:''' Why do you keep speaking sometimes-French?

* In ''Webcomic/{{Polandball}}'', all non-anglophone countryballs will speak broken English with some words from their native languages thrown in.
* ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' has the Rogue Canadian Scientists, a pair of mad scientists one of whom says "eh" all the time, and the other who speaks like [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Pepe Le Pew.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'': The animated series, at least, uses this for Starfire in the stilted but understandable version. She also adds articles (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.
** The fact that Starfire does this is [[FridgeLogic even more vexing]], considering her entire understanding of the English language stems from a direct psychic download from a native speaker, meaning she should have instant and near-perfect understanding of the language. The ''only'' words from her own language she should be using are ones without direct translations.
* 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 political correctness.
--> '''The Inspector:''' "Don't say sí. Say oui."\\
'''Deux-Deux:''' "Sí, Inspector."
** On at least one occasion, ''si'' was the correct thing to say even in French (positive reply to a negative question).
* PlayedForLaughs in the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "The Road to Germany", when a Nazi guard describes the fleeing Brian, Stewie, and Mort as "Ein dog, ein baby, und ein [[Music/SimonAndGarfunkel Art]] [[LesserStar Garfunkel]]".
* 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 apart from Wheeler, the only native English speaker among them) learned English in the first place is left unexplained.
* Antoine from ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM'' painfully mixes English and French in his sentences and his accent makes certain words impossible to interpret, much to the confusion of the other characters.
%%* Notable on ''WesternAnimation/MayaAndMiguel'' and other PBS kids' shows with Hispanic characters. Apparently all Hispanics know as much Spanish as an English-speaking animated cartoon writer.
* 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 Poirot Speak before the pilot even ended.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Madeline}}'' cartoons, most of the characters speak English with French accents, but pepper their speech with French words here and there.

* In ''Literature/PortraitInSepia'' Matías Rodríguez de la Cruz travels to Chile to spend his dying days with his family. He speaks Spanish with an odd French-English accent, and is constantly dropping phrases in French in his conversations with Aurora ("You are very young to understand these things, ''ma chère.''"). This trope is not evident in the Spanish edition, but it is in the English translation. It is a {{justified trope}}, as he has spent most of his time overseas.