%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1391115221030294800
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
%%
[[quoteright:350:[[Series/SaturdayNightLive https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thdysayswab_4551.png]]]]

->'''Saison Marguerite''': ''[In a thick French accent]'' Eh, Brittany, do you have an extra, how you say, hair tie?\\
'''Brittany''': Why do you say "how do you say" before words you CLEARLY know how to say?!
-->-- ''WebAnimation/TheMostPopularGirlsInSchool''

Pretty much a StockPhrase for any FunnyForeigner. Commonly used either to [[LampshadeHanging hang a lampshade]] on how they [[EloquentInMyNativeTongue don't speak English too well]] or with swearing to create a SophisticatedAsHell effect.

Ironically, it is usually used to show that the character isn't very fluent in English, but after the "How you say..." line, they often use an overly sophisticated sentence[[note]]Originally it probably has to do with the fact that to a French speaker (and to some extent to speakers of other Romance languges) the words that will be most familiar in English are the ones that came from Norman and Latin, and that Anglophones consider more fancy[[/note]].

Most frequently rendered as "how you say" instead of "how do you say" for added loose grasp on the language. Can lead to BuffySpeak. Another variant is to use it before an idiom, occasionally a... ''qu'est-ce qu'on dit''... "TotallyRadical" idiom. See LanguageEqualsThought if something along the lines of "my language, she has no word for this" comes up.

If the speaker is a Naive Newcomer or a Funny Foreigner, sometimes they will forego the "How do you say" part and just [[BluntMetaphorsTrauma incorrectly use a stock phrase]] ("Time to let the butt be kicked!").

It is obviously... ¿cómo se dice..? "TruthInTelevision". No RealLife examples, please.

----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Comic books]]
* A particularly odd example in ''Alan Scott: Comicbook/GreenLantern'' #4, in which the Russian Red Lantern says "It was just -- how would you say it? Dumb fortune?" while explaining how ''his fluency in English'' made him a perfect candidate to pose as an American soldier.
[[/folder]]

%%[[folder:Documentaries]]
%%* ''Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe''
%%-->'''Francesco:''' To travel through Sicily is to travel through time. I feel like your British Time Lord - how do you say? Doctor... what?
%%[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/TheBoltChronicles'': Berlioz uses this phrase in "The Paris Trip." His English is very good, though he's not sure of the right word for "grandfathered in."
-->'''Berlioz:''' My human's name is Jacques, and he's a jazz pianist. Plays in the house quintet at Chez Chaume Jazz Club. He's a sweetheart, too -- really nice to me, treats me great. Only problem is, he's not allowed to have pets where he lives, so I have to stay at the jazz club. And I'm lucky to be there -- they bent the rules to let me do so, kind of -- how would you say it in English? -- grandfathered me into the place.
* In ''Fanfic/JuniorOfficers'', Verdun says this, and mumbles to himself in French for a moment, before figuring out what the word was.
-->''I hope zat ze next field researcher is, how you say...(mumbles in French)...magnificent.''
%%* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8069358/3/Catch-Me-In-Midair Catch Me in Midair]]'' Fleur describes Draco as "One 'oo 'olds 'is cards, how do you say? Close to ze vest?"
%%* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6990881/3/Harry-Potter-and-the-Alternative-Tournament Harry Potter and the %%Alternative Tournament]]'':
%%-->'''Harry:''' Hmm...Gabrielle Delacour versus the Ministry...can I put a dozen galleons on Gabby now?\\
%%'''Fleur:''' Non. It would be, how do you say, a 'sucker bet'.
%%* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11618554/5/The-World-is-Our-Oyster The World is Our Oyster]]'':
%%-->'''Fleur:''' Beell, you parents 'ave been in a difficult time. You cannot ah - attendre - what is ze word? Attendre? Expect! You cannot expect zem to eegnore that which Dumbledore is saying, peux-tu?
%%* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12813458/12/The-Lonely-Letters The Lonely Letters]]'':
%%-->'''Fleur:''' I zought I 'ad lost you forever mon amour.\\
%%'''Harry:''' Never, Fleur. The grave itself could not stop me from being at your side.\\
%%'''Fleur:''' Zat was... 'ow you say? Cheesy?
%%* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5074951/30/Return-to-Prince-Manor Return to Prince Manor]]'':
%%-->'''Harry:''' Watch your back. I don't trust Krum. He Might try something.\\
%%'''Cedric:''' I don't trust him either. Thanks for the heads up, Harry.\\
%%'''Fleur:''' E is a . . .how do you say . . .snake in the grass?
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
%%* ''Film/AGoodYear''
%%-->'''Ludivine Duflot:''' Almost all French aristocrat have, how you say... liaison with their cousins, yes?
%%* ''Film/BlameItOnRio''
%%-->'''Eduardo Marques:''' You are, how you say, the queer couple?
* Professor Anna Vooshka from ''Film/CarryOnBehind'' is a Russian archaeologist who has come to Britain to help uncover Roman artifacts. Unfortunantly, her English is spotty and leads her to say many {{Double Entendre}}s.
-->'''Professor Vooshka''': You see, I am keeping a - how you say - dirrrty caravan.
%%* ''Film/IntolerableCruelty''
%%-->'''Heinz, the Baron Krauss von Espy:''' She spe-cif-i-cated a man with a wandering pee-pee. How you say? A philanderer whose affairs would be transparent to the world.
%%* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheMonsterOfMexico''
%%-->'''Doña Dolores:''' I don't trust him, never did. He is a... how you say in America?\\
%%'''Fred:''' Crook?\\
%%'''Daphne:''' Liar?\\
%%'''Velma:''' Con man?\\
%%'''Doña Dolores:''' ''[waits a beat]'' Jerk!
* ''Film/KansasCityPrincess'': The gag in this film is that Marie and Rosie are American women pretending to be French, and doing it quite badly. So that's what's going on when Rosie's giggling flirtatiousness prompts Marie to say to Junior, "She has, how you say, a good time?"
%%* ''Series/TheLikelyLads''
%%-->'''Christina:''' I learn much this weekend Terry, it has been, how you say in English, an eyesore.
%%* ''Film/{{Transporter 2}}''
%%-->'''Gianni:''' Perhaps I can help you! What part are you a little... how you say, "thick" on?
%%* ''Film/JamesAndTheGiantPeach''
%%-->'''Spider:''' We are in the middle of the, how do you say, the big puddle.\\
%%'''Centipede:''' Biggest puddle of 'em all, angel fangs ? the Atlantic Ocean.
%%* ''The Book of Stars'', talking about a hypothetical date:
%%-->'''Penny:''' What makes you wanna talk to her?\\
%%'''Kristjan:''' Oh, I would come to her because she's lovely and how do you say, um, mysterious.
%%* Parodied in ''Film/TopSecret'':
%%-->'''Ducoit:''' Well, Monsieur Rivers, it seems that you have become, how do you say, ''indispensable''?\\
%%'''Nick:''' "Indispensable."\\
%%'''Ducoit:''' That's what I thought.
%%* Ariel has this in ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'' about surface things she's not very sure about. "Walking around on those--what do you call them--oh! Feet!"
[[/folder]]

%%[[folder:Literature]]
%%* Literature/HerculePoirot is, of course, very fond of this phrase as part of his FunnyForeigner [[ObfuscatingStupidity routine]].
%%[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
%%* ''Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion'' (1955) episode "Rodeo":
%%-->'''Payroll Sgt. Zach Zachariades:''' A legionnaire in love is, how you say, like a starving man looking in the window of a delicatessen store. He cannot touch what he's crazy to have.
%%* ''Series/TheATeam'' episode "The A-Team Is Coming, the A-Team Is Coming":
%%-->'''Katrina Karpov:''' How you say? Take off all your clothing?
%%* ''Series/TheYoungIndianaJonesChronicles'' episode "Barcelona, May 1917":
%%-->'''Marcello:''' And the count is, how you say in Englese? Eh, a semi-psychotic paranoid introvert.
%%* ''Series/WhoopsApocalypse'':
%%-->'''Premier Dubienkin:''' We like, how you say, kick them in the balls.
%%* The ''[[Series/SaturdayNightLive "How Do You Say? Ah, Yes." Show with Antonio Banderas]]''.
* Parodied in ''Series/TheOfficeUS'', where Michael thought it was necessary to say "How you say?" to a perfectly English-fluent and non-French Canadian woman under the basis of her being "foreign".
%%* In ''Series/GetSmart'', a staple of Hawaiian detective Harry Hou's dialogue. As Max is providing the desired word, it's of course never the correct one.
[[/folder]]

%%[[folder:Theatre]]
%%* "Come Play Wiz Me" from ''Theatre/AnyoneCanWhistle'':
%%-->You like my hair, yes? My lips, yes?\\
%%Ze sway of my, how you say, of my hips, yes?...\\
%%I like your, how you say, imperturbable perspicacity.\\
%%It isn't how you say, it's what you see!
%%* "Hamilton"
%%Lafayette, who later gets "the fastest rap in the show":
%%--> How you say, how you sa- ah anarchy!\\
%%[[/folder]]

%%[[folder:Videogames]]
%%* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCityStories'':
%%-->'''Fernando:''' And you realize this is, how you say, a metaphor for the first sexual experience.
%%* In ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'', Fenix asserts that despite his age (and robotic body) he can still, "How do you Terrans say, 'throw down with the best of them'!" Which is goddamn hilarious coming from a [[WarriorPoet Protoss]].
%%* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'': L'cirufe falls into this one once, combining it with his usual BluntMetaphorsTrauma: "No, no, it's those Prone, sons of bastards! They are all, how do you say, asscaves!"
%%[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Originals]]
* ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'' has the ''Film/{{Borat}}'' {{Expy}} use the SophisticatedAsHell version to say that he is "How do you say, kind of a dick."
%%* Poked fun at with Amir in ''WebVideo/HardlyWorking'''s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB-cAoBCU8E&list=FLXn2SIdD2vmc&index=295 Airplane]]:
%%-->'''Amir:''' Don't be a, how you say, hero!\\
%%'''Dan:''' YOU KNOW HOW TO SAY IT!
* ''WebAnimation/TheMostPopularGirlsInSchool'' has Saison Marguerite, who says this fairly frequently. Sometimes before words that actually are French. Brittnay lampshades this fairly often and uses it to accuse Saison of being from Montreal instead of France.
-->'''Saison''': Oh, are you suggesting a - how you say - ménage à trois?
-->'''Brittnay''': Really? You're really asking how to say "ménage à trois"? It's a '''fucking''' French word, you little ''bitch!''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
%%* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Burns Verkauft der Kraftwerk":
%%-->'''Horst:''' I must have phrased that bad. My English is, how you say, inelegant.
%%* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'' episode "Isle of Solar Energy":
%%-->'''Linka:''' See? We found the correct cave? how do you say? right off the bat?
* Used frequently in ''WesternAnimation/GodzillaTheSeries'' with the native Frenchwoman of the team, Monique, even though her English is competent and avoids BluntMetaphorsTrauma. Memorably inverted once with (paraphrasing):
-->'''Monique:''' We will, how you say, throw a monkey wrench in the works?\\
'''Nick:''' In English, we call it 'sabotage'.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'': At the beginning of the pilot episode, Archer is interrogated by a Russian with a bad accent ([[spoiler:who's actually not even Russian, which is immediately lampshaded by Archer saying, "Would you [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent pick an accent and stick to it]]?"]]), who tells Archer that capturing him "is for us, how you say... a good get."
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': From "All That Glitters":
--> I would not dare touch such slop as this...how you say...Krabby Patty.
%%* ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'' uses this for Le Quack, a French criminal duck.
%%-->"Go... how do you say it... away."
%%* Fifi la Fume from ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' talks like this.
[[/folder]]

This be...how you say...the end?