Language Fluency Denial

Just keep trying, you'll stump her eventually!

Puss: No hablo ingles.
Perrito: ¡¿Hablas español?! ¡Yo también! ¡Ah! ¿De dónde eres? ¿Te gustan las siestas?^note "Do you speak Spanish?! Me too! Oh! Where are you from? Do you like naps?"
Puss: I don't speak Spanish either.

— Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

A surprisingly common way to prevent people from talking to you is to not speak their language. It seldom works, but it's often tried.

This manifests in three different ways.

• Speaking a different language: Alice will speak another language that Bob doesn't know whenever Bob is in earshot. Or at least, a language that she thinks Bob doesn't know.
• Speaking the language poorly: Alice will speak Bob's language poorly (eg. "Me no speak English") whenever Bob is in earshot.
• Going silent: Alice will go completely silent whenever Bob is in earshot. She may feign a lack of understanding by giving a blank stare or a look of puzzlement when he talks to her. She may make some non-verbal sounds, but if she does, she'll make sure that none of them are an appropriate response to whatever Bob is saying.

Common failure points include dropping "I don't speak X" into the middle of a conversation when Alice has already been speaking to Bob in X or making the claim in a language Bob is fluent in and Bob obligingly switching to the other language. A Completely Unnecessary Translator may be called in to "help". It's often Played for Laughs, but may also be invoked in very serious circumstances (like not letting an enemy know you understand them, thus allowing you to eavesdrop on them while in plain sight).

Some people might pretend not to speak another's language because:

• If not, they could expose their true identity in a situation where they would not want to be found out. Maybe they are not supposed to be there. Maybe they are a spy, a Human Alien, a traitor, etc.
• They might dislike the person who is speaking to them and would rather avoid them than have a conversation or dispute with them. Could be a sign that they are a Jerkass or a Dirty Coward.
• They think they are too good to speak that language, as it reminds them of a lesser group. They might refuse to admit that they used to belong to that group, or still do.

A subtrope of Language Barrier. May overlap with Hiding Behind the Language Barrier if the characters doing this transmit private information to each other while pretending not to understand the other person's language. Also compare Elective Broken Language, when a person doesn't pretend not to know the language but nevertheless chooses to speak in a grammatically improper or idiosyncratic way. If a non-human character is pretending to be physically unable to speak any language, that's Masquerade. Also compare Subterfuge Judo, which in this case, is used for the person ducking out, claiming they don't speak the language. Contrast Bilingual Backfire, where others think that somebody doesn't speak the language only to find out the hard way that they do, usually after insulting them behind their back in that language.

---

Examples:

Speaking a different language:

Anime & Manga

• Defied in Dragon Ball, which otherwise makes full use of Aliens Speaking English. When Frieza asks a Namekian a question about where to find the other Dragon Balls, the Namekian plays dumb and only responds in his native language. Frieza sees right through it and asserts that the alien start speaking to him in a shared language.
• In Love Live! Sunshine!!, Mari attempts to dodge an awkward question from Kanan by lapsing into English and claiming to be unable to speak Japanese. (The dub instead has her speaking Italian.)
• Gate: After an incident with a flame dragon caused a number of civilian casualties, Itami is called to testify before the Diet, along with Tuka, Lelei, and Rory Mercury. Lelei is well-versed in Japanese at this point, and actually functions as an interpreter. However, when a politician, looking to score political points and make the JSDF look bad, tries to make a case that the JSDF abandoned the civilians to save their own skin, Rory Mercury surprises everyone by revealing in the hearing that she actually speaks fluent Japanese by attacking the politician directly ("Anta baka?!" ^note  "Are you stupid?! in the original Japanese, "Are you a goddamned idiot!?" in the English dub). She then proceeds to demolish the politician's argument by accusing her of manipulating numbers. "A quarter of the people died? Three quarters were saved. Itami and his team did something that had never been done before. They neither hid nor ran away." The intensity of her testimony, plus the shock that she had learned Japanese in secret, had the needed impact and ended the hearing.

Comedy

• Comedian Jasper Carrott played a practical joke on British holidaymakers in Spain by pretending to be an incompetent Spanish waiter who understood no English, botched orders, spilled drinks, and generally exasperated people. Hidden cameras would catch the action as the holidaymakers got progressively more annoyed. However, one clued-up Butt-Monkey saw through the set-up the very first time Carrott replied with a suspicious ¿Que?
• Vietnamese-German stand-up comedian Thomas "Tutty" Tran, in one of his routines, describes attempting to get out of a traffic ticket by speaking Vietnamese (despite being born and raised in West Berlin). The officer, however, had apparently seen this trick before and continued to demand his license and registration documents. When Tutty hands him his ID, the officer takes one look at the card and yells in German, "Your name is THOMAS!"

Comic Books

• New Mutants: While the team was visiting Nova Roma, Sunspot, who can speak several languages including Latin fluently, hid the fact he understood Latin when dealing with Roman Guards.

Comic Strips

• Retail: In this strip a customer asks Stuart if he is the manager because he has a complaint. Stuart tries to weasel out by saying in Spanish "I don't speak English." The customer just repeats his question in Spanish to a now really worried Stuart.

Fan Works

• Marinette speaks Chinese in The Seven Misfortunes of Lady Fortune when a drunk businessman tries to hit on her during Gabriel's funeral.

Films — Animated

• In Inside Out, Fear wants Riley to pull this trope after being called on by the teacher on the first day of school.
  Teacher: Riley, would you like to tell us something about yourself?
  Fear: No! Pretend we can't speak English.
• Pocahontas: The Native Americans speak to each other in English, but whenever the Powhatans meet with one of the Englishmen, they speak Powhatan, until some spiritual magic gets involved and bridges the language barrier. However, it's not clear if it's meant to be this trope or if it's meant to be a case of Translation Convention.
• Puss in Boots (2011):
  • When he's caught by Jack while trying to rob him, Puss speaks Spanish.
    Jack: You lookin' for something?
    Puss: Uh... no. [chuckles nervously] ¿No hablo ingles?
  • Again in the sequel, when Perrito tries to talk to him.
    Puss: No hablo ingles.
    Perrito: ¡¿Hablas español?! ¡Yo también! ¡Ah! ¿De dónde eres? ¿Te gustan las siestas?^note "Do you speak Spanish?! Me too! Oh! Where are you from? Do you like naps?"
    Puss: I don't speak Spanish either.
• Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted: When the zookeepers run towards DuBois to thank her for returning the animals (she's actually about to saw Alex's head off and thinks she's in trouble), she hides the saw behind her back, looks confused and says "Qu'est-ce que c'est?"

Films — Live-Action

• In Bachelor Mother, lower-middle-class Polly is nervous when rich boy David issues a last-minute invitation to be his date for a high-society dance. He thus introduces her to his friends as a woman from Sweden who doesn't speak English. They speak faux-Swedish gibberish to each other throughout the evening.
• Spoofed in Bon Cop, Bad Cop, as with so very many language tropes. When Ontario Provincial detective Martin Ward reveals in front of a room full of Sureté du Québec detectives that he actually is fluent in French (and thus massively owning the Quebecois cops, who all think they've been Insulting from Behind the Language Barrier the entire time they've been mocking him in French), he plays this trope:
  Martin: Non, je ne parle pas français. Je me suis fait installer un petit gadget au cerveau and I see subtitles under people when they speak.
  Translation: No, I don't speak French. I have had a small gadget installed in my neck and I see subtitles under people when they speak.
• David does this in Delivery Man when he's informed that the children he's fathered through anonymous sperm donation have filed a lawsuit to learn his identity.
• In The Freshman (1990), Victor briefly speaks only Spanish after Clark recognizes him as the guy who robbed him; he drops the act after a few moments.
• Hangmen Also Die!: Bobby's nephew Jason loves messing with rich white clients by pretending not to know any English, speaking only in Spanish and a few "memorized English phrases".
• The Hunt for Red October: The Russians speak English when only Russians are in earshot, but Russian when Americans are on board. However, it's not clear if it's meant to be this trope or if it's meant to be a case of Translation Convention.
• In Inglourious Basterds, Aldo, Donny, and Omar are pretending to be Italians to get into the film premiere, to avoid having to speak German, which none of them are fluent in. Unfortunately, only Aldo has any knowledge of Italian at all, and it's so bad that Landa (who is perfectly fluent in German, Italian, French, and English) immediately sees through them.
• The Killing Fields: Since the Khmer Rouge track and kill the educated, Dith Pran has to pretend that he does not understand foreign languages. It doesn't work, but luckily, Phat, the man who figures out his ruse, has become disillusioned with the Khmer Rouge regime and makes him his servant rather than sentencing him to death.
• Lifeboat: Willi, the U-boat captain stuck on a lifeboat with a bunch of Americans, doesn't speak English—until a storm comes and he starts barking orders in perfect English.
• Played for a gag in Mon Oncle Antoine, when Jos, a Francophone Canadian miner, has a confrontation with a supervisor who speaks to him in English.
  Supervisor: [in English] I'm telling you for the last time, you understand? The last time!
  Jos: [in French] That may be sooner than you think.
  Mario: What did he say?
  Jos: I don't know. I don't speak English.
• In Toy Soldiers the Colombian villains are Hiding Behind the Language Barrier by speaking Spanish. They ask one of the students, Ricardo, if he speaks Spanish. Ricardo denies being able to speak the language. When the villain says in Spanish to shoot him anyway Ricardo yells "No, wait!", revealing himself.
• In Bright, Tikka, a teenage elf on the run from a terrorist cult, spends half the movie pretending she doesn't understand or speak English until she decides she can trust LAPD officers Ward (a human) and Jakoby (an orc). Luckily Jakoby took two years of Elvish in high school.
• In Wanted: Dumb or Alive, a woman pulled over in Idaho gave the officer a helpless smile and said in German that she didn't understand English. The officer in question banished that smile by responding politely "Heute ist ein glücklicher Tag für Sie."^note "Today is a lucky day for you" in German

Literature

• The Alice Network:
  • When Captain Cameron asks Eve whether she speaks German, she tells him she doesn't.
• Books of the Raksura: When the Raksura travel with a group they're suspicious of, they pretend not to understand the group's native Kedaic and only communicate in the Altanic Common Tongue, so they can listen in when the group tries Hiding Behind the Language Barrier. It gets them some very useful information from the people who do turn out to be enemies, but makes for an awkward confession to the ones who were honest all along.
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: The Bulgarian Minister of Magic doesn't speak English because he enjoyed seeing Fudge struggle to communicate through mime. He admits he understood English the whole time after the Bulgarians lost the Quidditch World Cup.
• Fifth Business: When the protagonist encounters a childhood acquaintance who's living under a new identity, the acquaintance rather lamely tries this multiple times, switching to a different foreign language whenever the protagonist reveals himself to be fluent in the previous one. Finally he has to give up and acknowledge that they know each other.
• The German book Mordswiesn has half-Italian Bellina telling us that she enjoys being foreign because it means that whenever she's stopped by the police, she can speak Italian and pretend to not understand them.
• In The Peshawar Lancers, Russian secret agent Count Ignatieff's cover identity is as an Afghan smuggler from a peasant background. When dealing with two arrogant high-caste Indians who are trying to overthrow the Angerez Raj, he speaks only Pashtun so he can eavesdrop on them when they're speaking in their own language; even keeping a cheerful, slightly dim smile on his face while they're directly insulting him.
• A Night in the Lonesome October: Rastov usually speaks English, but when he is questioned by the British police about the missing man, he speaks Russian.
• The Ugly American: "Donald" and "Roger", two Chinese employees of the US Embassy in Sarkhan, speak only Chinese in order to be able to eavesdrop on the American employees and report what they hear to the Communists in China and Sarkhan.

Live-Action TV

• That '70s Show: Fez tries to use this excuse when the gang are busted by the Mounties when trying to cross the border with Canadian beer.
• 'Allo 'Allo! The British airmen Carstairs and Fairfax know that Michelle speaks English, but everyone else in the Resistance switches to their native language when talking to them.
• The Closer: In one episode, the suspect claimed that she didn't speak English, so Brenda had Martinez question her in Spanish. It turned out that the suspect spoke perfect English but barely spoke Spanish!
• Daredevil (2015): Madame Gao hides her being Omniglot and passes herself as someone not able to speak English or indeed any language other than Mandarin.
• The Dumping Ground: In the episode "Finding Frank", Rick and some of the kids find an antiques shop where Frank's old watch is in the window. When they ask the shopkeeper about it, he says that a girl (who was in the shop a few minutes earlier) has expressed an interest in buying it. Said girl returns a few minutes later, dumps a wad of cash on the counter, declares the watch is hers, and scarpers off with it. When the other kids try to confront her, she says "No English", which Rick counters by the fact she spoke good English whilst inside the shop.
• Frasier: Woody from Cheers is visiting Frasier in Seattle. He likes Seattle, but not spending time with Frasier, and pretends to have left. Frasier spots him in a bar; he hides in the bathroom, responding to Frasier's knocking with "No habla Ingles". When Frasier indignantly tells him "I don't understand this [behavior]," he replies through the door "It means I don't speak English."
• Friends: While Monica was working at Alessandro's, one of the chefs told her in Italian, "I don't speak English" when asked to do something. When Monica tells her that she knows she does, because she heard her speaking English just a minute ago, the chef replies, "Well, I don't know what to tell you", and walks off.
• House: The title character is fluent in many languages but never reveals it until after other speakers have said something useful or incriminating:
  • One of his most memorable clinic patients is a girl allegedly translating her mother's request in Mandarin for birth control pills in a ploy to get them for herself. When she mixes up her mother's real medication and tries to pin it on House, House gets back at her by congratulating her mom in Mandarin on becoming a grandmother.
  • This strategy reveals that a patient is lying about working at a fast food place because House hears the patient and his 12-year-old brother agree in Spanish that the brother will cover for him at work. House later grills the mom in Spanish about where his patient really works.
    Cuddy: Why didn't you say you spoke Spanish?!
    House: Because she'd want to talk to me.
• Kim's Convenience: The Korean-Canadian Janet's subplot in the Season 2 episode "Sneak Attack" starts when her response to getting caught sneaking into a film festival is pretending she doesn't speak English fluently. This leads the security guard to think she's a North Korean dissident filmmaker named Janat. Unfortunately for Janet, this ruse comes back to haunt her when she keeps running into the security guard at the convenience store.
• Law & Order: UK: A late episode has a suspect claiming not to speak English. We get a Call-Back to the very first episode when DS Ronnie Brooks talks to him in French, showing that he will not be deterred and forcing the man to admit that he speaks English after all.
• I Love Lucy: After Lucy finds out something seemingly incriminating, Ricky says, "No hablo Ingles!" as he heads for the door.
  Lucy: You hablo plenty of Ingles, and you better start hablo-ing right now!
• Oz: In one episode, Warden Glynn interrogates some Latino prisoners, who respond to every question with "Que?". Of course they all speak perfect English, Glynn knows that and they know that he knows, they're just mocking him and refusing to answer.
• Michael Palin's post-Monty Python TV series Ripping Yarns had an episode called "The Testing of Eric Olthwaite". Eric is possibly the most boring little tit in Yorkshire and has two interests: shovels and rainfall. He notes that his own father would pretend to be French so as not to have to speak to him.
• Saved by the Bell has this exchange courtesy of Lisa and Screech (who it should be pointed out have known each other for years).
  Screech: Oh Lisa, Lisa, Lisa...
  Lisa: Lisa no in casa!
  Screech: I love it when you speak German.
• On an episode of The Wire, done to Lester Freamon and Bunk Moreland during the Terrible Interviewees Montage by members of a ship's crew, at least until Lester and Bunk call them out on it (though they still deny it):
  Lester: ...Negro, you cannot travel halfway around the world and not speak any motherfucking English!
  Crew member: [continues to babble in another language]
  Lester: English, motherfucker!
• Scrubs: Turk learns to speak Spanish to surprise Carla. When he realizes that Carla tells her sister over the phone what she wants from him, he decides to pretend he can't understand her so he can appear to intuitively know what she wants.
• Two of a Kind has Mary-Kate trying to scare off her father's date by speaking Spanish to her at the front door. The woman instead thinks it's cute.
• Warrior: The Chinese characters talk to each other in fluent English, but when white people are around they'll either talk to each other in subtitled Chinese whenever white people are around and pretend not to understand English, or talk to the white people in broken English. Ah Sahm drops the act after being arrested and talks to Sergeant Bill O'Hara in English. Ah Sahm drops the act after being arrested and talks to Sergeant Bill O'Hara in English.

Music

• Bowling for Soup's "No Hablo Ingles" is about pretending not to speak English (by using the title phrase) to get out of various quandaries and responsibilities.
  My teacher asked where my homework was
  And that's when I told her
  "No hablo ingles!"

Professional Wrestling

• While Sucio Dutch Mantel did know Spanish and simply refused to speak it, his alternate gimmick Zeb Coulter acted as if he knew none whatsoever.
• Umaga was fully capable of speaking English, as anyone familiar with his previous "Jamal" gimmick would know (even without taking his Jamal gimmick into account, Umaga could clearly understand English to some degree), but chose to speak exclusively in Samoan until he inexplicably started antagonizing CM Punk and challenged him to a "Samoan Strap Match". To further hammer it home, the announcers didn't even acknowledge that Umaga was speaking English for the first time.
• When Alex Wright was repackaged as Berlyn, he spoke only in German with his dialogue being translated by an interpreter. "Mean" Gene Okerlund called him out on this a few times.
• Meng was another wrestler who often avoided speaking English in interviews, instead speaking Tongan. One particular interview has Okerlund insist that Meng speak English, only for him to speak other languages, such as Japanese and French, instead.
• After becoming the first Japanese man to join the otherwise anti-Japanese gaijin Power Stable Bullet Club, Yujiro Takahashi began to deny interviews by pretending he did not understand Japanese.

Theater

• Sovereignty: Major Ridge refuses to speak English in front of any white people and stays with his native Cherokee as a form of sovereignty over his own body, forcing John to translate for him even though he understands Jackson and other English speakers perfectly.

Visual Novels

• In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, witness Olga Orly tried to avoid testifying by claiming she can't speak English. The judge pointed out to her that she'd been speaking English fluently seconds ago.
• Used twice in the beta version of Katawa Shoujo, both in reference to Shizune (who is deaf):
  • Played for Laughs when Hisao decides to learn sign language without telling Misha or Shizune. He hides it from them for a while and begins to notice all the things Shizune is saying behind his back.
  • Played for Drama much later. After Misha's death Shizune goes into a Heroic BSoD and won't leave her room. Later when Hisao confronts her she reveals she's been able to read lips the entire time they've known each other, but she hides it from everyone.

Web Animation

• In Anon, Dani's attempts to avoid conflict with her husband by pretending to be unable to speak English and only speak Spanish are hilarious, mostly because Hunter's first language is Spanish and by Dani's own admission the only Spanish words she knows are "hola" and "El Pollo Loco".

Web Comics

• In this 21st Century Fox comic a drunkard who caused a multi-vehicle accident yells at a Mexican truck driver who tells him "No hablo ingles, señor." And then asks Cecil if he can do anything to help, in plain English.
  Cecil: I thought you didn't speak English?
  Truck driver: Not to drunken gringos, no.
• Early on in Paradigm Shift, a mid-ranking Triad gangster gets captured by the police after a shoot-out and speaks Chinese in order to buy time so his buddies can destroy some evidence. Unfortunately for him, one of the protagonists grew up in Hong Kong.
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: While in Iceland, Emil, who's only really fluent in his native Swedish, first tries to get out of an interview by legitimately saying he doesn't speak Icelandic. When the reporter turns out to know Swedish as well, Emil uses some of the little Finnish he knows to pretend to not know Swedish. That doesn't work because the reporter has a few smatterings of Finnish as well, making Emil give up and choose to be interviewed in Swedish.
• In El Goonish Shive, Nanase tries this in an effort to get Melissa to leave by telling her in Japanese that she doesn't understand English. When Melissa asks her a question Nanase slips up and answers in English.
• Unsounded: When Captain Toma comes across Matty and Jivi at the constable station Matty tries to pretend he doesn't speak Continental to avoid getting arrested. Mind at this point Toma and Matty had already met and had a conversation in Continental, so the attempt isn't worth much.

Web Videos

• In The Autobiography of Jane Eyre, Suzanna-Maria Ramirez Gonzalez pulls this tactic off successfully. She speaks only Spanish in front of Jane or Grace Poole. Grace genuinely believes she doesn't understand English and this way, she bothers her way less. Suzanna eventually reveals to Jane that she actually speaks perfect English.
• Funny or Die: This trope appears in NCIS: Ibiza.
  Juan Julio^note Played by Destructo: No hablo ingles, detective.
  Steve Aoki: Oh claro, rindente Juan Julio s-
  Juan Julio: I don't really speak Spanish.
• hololive: Invoked on at least two occasions by Kureiji Ollie, who is an Indonesian but can speak fluent Japanese. On one occasion, she claimed to have been behind an impressive build in Minecraft, and when questioned by her Japanese senpai that chat stated she was lying suddenly apologetically admitted she doesn't understand Japanese.

Western Animation

• Played with in the Family Guy episode "Road to Rhode Island":
  Brian: Hola! Um... me, me llamo es Brian. Ahh, uh, um... Let's see, uh, nosotros queremos ir con ustedes.
  Migrant worker: Hey, that was pretty good. Except when you said, "Me llamo es Brian," you don't need the "es", just "me llamo Brian".
  Brian: Oh! So you speak English!
  Migrant worker: No, just that first speech and this one explaining it.
  Brian: You... you're kidding, right?
  Migrant worker: Que?
• On Futurama, Bender uses this excuse when Cubert asks why a delivery company needs a bending robot.
• On Rocko's Modern Life, Heffer and Filburt pretend to be foreigners to avoid punishment for a spree of ding-dong ditching, which they let Rocko take the fall for. When they're on the news, Heffer declares "Me llamo Francois" while Filburt says that he doesn't speak English.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield", Marge meets a now-wealthy old friend at the Kwik-E-Mart. When the woman tried to get Apu to pump her gas despite it being a self-service station, Apu spoke Hindi even though she just heard him talking to Marge in English seconds earlier.
  • In "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass", Homer invites the athletes enrolled in his Showboating Academy to dinner at his house, and basketball star Yao Ming (playing himself) feigns ignorance to get out of doing chores.
    Marge: Who wants to help me clear the table?
    Yao Ming: (in Chinese) I'm sorry, but I do not understand English.
    Lisa: I've read that you speak excellent English.
    Yao Ming: Shut up, kid. I got a good thing going here.

Real Life

• Sammy Sosa's English comprehension skills got significantly worse during the Congressional hearings on steroid use in Major League Baseball following the publication of the Mitchell Report.
• Stephen Merchant mentioned on The Ricky Gervais Show that he once tried to duck out of donating to a charity by affecting an accent and pretending he wasn't a fluent English speaker. Then the charity worker realized he looked familiar and questioned if he was Stephen Merchant, forcing Stephen to decide whether he should continue with the lie or admit the truth. He denied knowing who Stephen Merchant was.
• In July 2017, President Trump claimed after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Abe and his wife that the latter couldn't speak a word of English, even "hello". However, she had once delivered a speech in perfect English. Many commentators wondered whether she simply pretended to not know English to avoid talking to him.
• During the 2022 World Cup, after Australia was knocked out by reigning champions France, Jason Cummings attempted to swap shirts with Olivier Giroud, only for Giroud - who spent a decade playing in England - to pretend he didn't understand him and walk right past. To rub salt in the wound, Giroud later tweeted, in perfect English, to reveal that he'd swapped shirts with Cummings' teammate Jackson Irvine instead.
• Some Japanese rock musicians do this in English-speaking locales since people expect them to not know English — giving them an easy out for encounters with non-Japanese-fluent fans or media. Pata of X Japan is famous for doing this — he has good enough English skills to work with English-speaking American artists and to pick up English-speaking groupies, but is also a Shrinking Violet and will happily pretend to be unable to speak English to avoid an encounter he doesn't want.

Speaking the language poorly:

Advertising

• In this Bud Light commercial, the man teaching English as a Second Language is only teaching his students how to order a Bud Light in different parts of the country. He also teaches them that when someone asks them for a Bud Light, they should say "No Speak English".

Anime & Manga

• Ling Yao, a Xingese prince visiting Amestris, uses this excuse in order to avoid paying for all the wreckage he's caused in Fullmetal Alchemist. Ed doesn't buy it.
  Ling: I so solly, I no speak much language of this country! Ok, bye-bye now!

Comedy

• In one of Margaret Cho's early stand-up routines, she said this was a benefit of looking Asian, you could avoid talking to strangers by giving a shy giggle and saying "Oh, I don't know".

Comic Books

• In "Return to Xanadu", an Uncle Scrooge comic by Don Rosa after the Ducks have accidentally flooded Xanadu:
  Xanaduian man: Honorable Scrooge! Do YOU know anything about this?
  Scrooge: So solly! No speakee lingo!
• In The Sandman (1989), a drunken sailor approaches "Emperor" Joshua Norton's chamberlain, Ah How, asking him (in a racist way) if he knows where the nearest Opium Den is. Ah How bows and says, "Vellee sollee. Speekee no Engrish." As the sailor stumbles off cursing, the chamberlain resumes speaking with Norton in fluent English.
• Love Worth Waiting For: Mulan is only learning English, so she's still a bit shaky, but she sometimes pretends to be less fluent than she actually is.
• In Nico Nico Super Idol Show Shioriko mentions that after Lanzhu flub her loved confession to her^note Saying "I am in lesbians with you" she pretended she couldn't speak Japanese and ran off.

Films — Animated

• Aladdin: Iago the Parrot can talk intelligently but pretends he can't around everyone but Jafar.
• In Inside Out, Fear wants Riley to pull this trope after being called on by the teacher on the first day of school.
  Teacher: Riley, would you like to tell us something about yourself?
  Fear: No! Pretend we can't speak English.
• Tarzan: Tarzan, the gorillas, and the elephants speak to each other in perfect English, but when Jane meets Tarzan, he repeats everything she says. However, it's not clear if it's meant to be this trope or if it's meant to be a case of Translation Convention.

Films — Live-Action

• Hangmen Also Die!: Bobby's nephew Jason loves messing with rich white clients by pretending not to know any English, speaking only in Spanish and a few "memorized English phrases".
• Paulie: Averted for the most part. Paulie the parrot, who is fluent in English, generally doesn't hide this, yet humans generally just assume he doesn't understand English and is just trained to say the things he says. However, this is played straight when he acts like an ordinary parrot when presented by Dr. Reingold as revenge for not returning him to Marie.

Literature

• In the mystery novel 9 Dragons, Harry Bosch, who is trying to find his kidnapped daughter in Hong Kong, traces her to a cargo ship. He jumps on the cargo ship, grabs a Chinese Mook, and starts barking questions. When he gets no answer he says "Can you swim, asshole?", to which the Mook only replies "No speak." Bosch hesitates and the mook breaks out of the chokehold. When he comes back after Bosch with a knife he says "Can you swim, asshole?"
• In Confessions of a Taoist on Wall Street, Sun I justifies the presence of his silent partner Aaron Kahn at a one-on-one hostile takeover meeting by claiming Kahn is his interpreter. When the executive Sun's meeting with points out he seems perfectly fluent in English, Sun says, "Excuse please, could you repeat?"
• Ella Enchanted: When Lucinda starts yelling at Ella during the wedding, Ella pretends she doesn't understand Kyrrian (which is actually her native language) — not to prevent Lucinda from communicating with her (she actually hopes that Lucinda does speak Ayorthaian, as she needs to ask her for something), but just in hopes of calming her down by pretending she doesn't understand what Lucinda is yelling about, as well as suggesting that she couldn't have been eavesdropping on Lucinda's prior conversation. It works, and they're able to have a much more civil conversation in Ayorthaian.
• This is done in The Tamuli — twice, by different characters, in order to bring in a Completely Unnecessary Translator for more time to consider their responses (in the second case it also doubles as obscuring to his court how intelligent and learned he really is). In the first case, the person being unnecessarily translated figures it out (she recognized that the other's face showed signs of reacting before the translation was actually said) but plays along until the other admits it, in the second it is pulled off flawlessly.
• In Wolf Hall, the protagonist Thomas Cromwell has developed a fluency in a number of languages, which he often puts to use in his professional life. However, early in the novel, Cardinal Wolsey inquires about Cromwell's knowledge of Castilian Spanish for a mission involving Henry VIII's attempts to divorce Catherine of Aragon. While Cromwell actually is fluent in the language, he pretends to have only basic knowledge because he knows that the assignment would not bode well for his advancement.

Live-Action TV

• Warrior: The Chinese characters talk to each other in fluent English, but when white people are around they'll either talk to each other in subtitled Chinese whenever white people are around and pretend not to understand English, or talk to the white people in broken English. Ah Sahm drops the act after being arrested and talks to Sergeant Bill O'Hara in English. Ah Sahm drops the act after being arrested and talks to Sergeant Bill O'Hara in English.

Professional Wrestling

• Shinsuke Nakamura speaks fluent English (though he has a strong accent that can be hard to understand sometimes), even well enough to serve as translator for his fellow Japanese wrestlers. However, during a 2018 Face–Heel Turn in which he turned on the fans and rivals, he started refusing to do interviews to explain his actions, simply saying "No speak English" before walking out of the interview with a shit-eating grin. He also changed his theme song from a non-lyrical chant that's easy for people to sing along with, to a lyrically complex one composed entirely of Japanese, specifically to alienate English-speaking audiences.

Video Games

• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: The birds will talk intelligently if you hide. But if you're not hiding, they don't and the parrot says the stock parrot phrases. The parrot drops the act after the end of the chapter, though.
• The start of level six of The Simpsons Hit & Run parodies this after it's discovered Kang and Kodos are behind the whole plot:
  Bart: Apu, you've got to help me warn Krusty about this alien plot, and thus save the good people of Springfield.
  Apu: I'm sorry, sir, but I cannot speak English. I only speak Hindi.
  Bart: But you're speaking English now.
  Apu: Yes, I learned these words phonetically.
  Bart: Well, you're just scared of getting vaporized by the space monsters.
  Apu: Up down! Up down! Go, hot dog! Button my undershirt! Blah-blah-blah!

Web Videos

• On another when she and Hakos Baelz (an Australian) were doing a collab with Roberu of Holostars, when he pointed out they were being hypocrites by encouraging him to take a meal break when they themselves hadn't eaten yet both Ollie and Baelz asked him to excuse them because "(we are) foreigners and don't understand Japanese" in stereotypically foreign accent. They then engage Roberu in an in-depth conversation about sushi... in Japanese.

Western Animation

• Carmen Sandiego: When the gang is in Venice, Italy to protect a museum's collection of valuable masks from V.I.L.E., Zack goes undercover as a museum employee to run interference on A.C.M.E.'s own operation to protect the masks. He puts on an Italian accent and claims his English isn't good in an attempt to shorten a conversation with Agent Zari. Unfortunately for him, she happens to speak fluent Italian, forcing Player to run a translation and provide Zack with responses.
• Vladimir from Shonen Note: Boy Soprano can speak Japanese fluently, as his grandmother was Japanese, but pretends not to speak much for kicks.
• The Simpsons: Discussed in "I Love Lisa", when Homer suggests "I no speak English" as one of several ways for Lisa to let Ralph know she isn't interested in him romantically.

Going silent:

Comic Books

• In Lucky Luke, one Indian that ambushed a convoy is pretending to not understand English. Luke spots him when the stagecoach interrogates them and the Indian is blushing at the obscenities.
• In Swamp Thing, the sleazy photographer Howard Fleck, looking for the title character who's recently returned to Earth, asks the Cajun swamp resident Gene LaBostrie for help locating him, promising him money. LaBostrie, although bilingual, simply spreads out his hands, says "Eh?" and paddles away, out of respect for the Swamp Thing's privacy.

Comic Strips

• Pearls Before Swine: When Rat becomes a pet psychic and uses it to his advantage by straight-up lying to the pets' owners about what they're thinking for his own gain, a parrot named Pepe winds up exposing his being a fraud, implying that Pepe had been pretending to not be able to talk intelligently.
  "Pepe can talk and Pepe says you're an unmitigated fraud."

Films — Animated

• Barnyard: Although the farmer does, at one point, see the animals doing human-like things, he never actually hears them talking. The closest the farmer gets to hearing an animal talk is when Otis goes "Woo hoo!", sees the farmer, and goes "Uh... moo?"
• The Boss Baby: All babies can talk, but babble when adults are around. The Boss Baby is forced to drop the act around Tim when the latter overhears him talking on the phone, but the other babies don't even talk in front of Tim.
• Jungledyret Hugo: Hugo can talk intelligently, but rarely talks to humans and the one time he does talk to a human all he says is his name, almost inaudibly. Downplayed as he doesn't hide his ability to understand what humans are saying.
• In Inside Out, Fear wants Riley to pull this trope after being called on by the teacher on the first day of school.
  Teacher: Riley, would you like to tell us something about yourself?
  Fear: No! Pretend we can't speak English.
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: Puss also keeps his ability to talk a secret from Mama Luna but doesn't hide his other anthropomorphic qualities from her.

Films — Live-Action

• In Hangmen Also Die!, Czaka doesn't speak German in order to allay suspicions of collaborating with the Nazis. In fact, not speaking German had been his alibi once previously, when the Resistance was betrayed two years ago.
• Paulie: Averted for the most part. Paulie the parrot, who is fluent in English, generally doesn't hide this, yet humans generally just assume he doesn't understand English and is just trained to say the things he says. However, this is played straight at the beginning of the movie, where he goes silent whenever Marie's parents are in earshot.
• Scarface (1983): Discussed. Tony tells Manny he should have kept his mouth shut during the immigration interview.

Literature

• The Alice Network: In order to be hired at Le Lethe, Eve must not speak any German. (German-speaking waitresses aren't employed at Le Lethe for the reason that German customers must be allowed perfect privacy.) It would be suspicious if she spoke English, so she doesn't speak that either.
• In The Case Files of Jeweler Richard's Diamond case, Richard has no interest in talking to shopkeepers in the jewelry store Seigi drags him to and doesn't speak a word of Japanese, which he is fluent in.
• Jonathan Harker falls victim to this trope in the early chapters of Dracula when he asks questions about local superstitions and the villagers' fear of the count. His account suggests that both the villagers and Dracula at least try to play it smart by pretending they don't understand his phrasing or choice of words rather than the language itself. The result remains the same.

Live-Action TV

• Game of Thrones: Zig Zagged in the first episode of season 6, when Daenerys is captured by the Dothraki. Although viewers know of her proficiency in their language from previous seasons, she chooses to keep totally silent while assessing the situation. When Khal Moro publicly attempts to rip her clothes off, she spits out multiple defiances, saving her life and setting her arc for the season in motion.
• XO, Kitty: Min-ho pretends not to understand English when first meeting Kitty because he does not want to waste his breath on a stranger. This is his Establishing Character Moment as the Jerkass.

Theater

• The Foreigner takes place in a fishing lodge in rural Tilghman County, Georgia where two Englishmen, Froggy and Charlie, arrive as guests. The shy Charlie agreed to accompany Froggy on the trip after his sick wife begged him to go. When people at the lodge try to talk to Charlie, however, he remains silent: he is terribly shy, depressed about his wife's illness, and cannot find the words to reply. Froggy claims that Charlie cannot talk because he is a "foreigner" from an exotic country, and does not understand English. Taking the explanation that he's a non-English speaker as fact, the lodge's guests quickly begin revealing their secrets, and Charlie soon discovers scandals amongst some of the residents of the lodge.

Web Videos

• In Groom, Delphine is trying to sneak a homeless guy into the hotel past the suspicious concierge Martin by pretending he is a DJ. She claims that he is Estonian to explain why he doesn't respond to Martin's questions, so Martin tries talking to him in Estonian. Then she claims he is deaf as well, so Martin tries Sign Language. Subverted when Martin admits that he only knows French Sign Language and not Estonian Sign Language, so he lets them go.

Web Original

• Seinfeld - "The Twin Towers": When confronted by a distraught woman looking for her missing husband, Kramer acts like he doesn't understand English.

Western Animation

• Courage the Cowardly Dog: Courage can talk just fine, but communicates with his owners Muriel and Eustace through babbles and charades. Downplayed since he doesn't his ability to understand what they're saying.
• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: Jimmy's baby cousin Eddie can talk, but pretends he can't around adults until the end of "Clash of the Cousins".
• Rugrats: The babies talk to each other and slightly older children in perfect English but communicate with grown-ups in baby babble.

---