The Translation Convention in western animation TV shows.
- Shown in an episode of 101 Dalmatians The Series. Lucky is shown ranting at Cruella; however, when it cuts to Cruella's perspective, Lucky is shown barking at her. This also seems to be the case when Cadpig & Rolly are shown trying to communicate with Roger later in the episode. However, it later gets played with, with Cruella being able to understand Lucky when the two get trapped in Roger's video game.
- Averted, invoked, lampshaded, and ultimately justified (and then played straight and lampshaded again) in Season 9 of Archer: Herr Fuchs speaks German-accented English when conversing with English-speaking characters, but German when talking to himself or the Nazi Sturmtruppen he eventually commands. However, his troops soon begin speaking English among themselves and insist he do so as well because they wish to practice their English so they might more effectively woo the English-speaking Charlotte Stratton, with whom they are collectively (if somewhat mistakenly) infatuated.
- Everyone in Avatar: The Last Airbender speaks English, but all of the writing in the show would indicate they're speaking archaic Chinese. Though it brings up a bit of Fridge Logic about Yue's and Hope's names.
- This seems to be the case with all the animals in Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, further cemented in the episode "Dirty Rotten Diapers": the Rangers try to call 911 to stop infant con artist Baby Thaddeus from robbing a couple's house. Their voices emerge as a high-pitched chattering sound to the cops on the other side.Chip: Hold it, Rangers! I don't think he understands Chipmunk!Monterey Jack: Or even Mouse-ese!
- This was done in the Chowder episode "The Wrong Address/The Wrong Customer", in which Chowder and Mung Daal have to make a delivery to a district they've never been to. Meeting up with several of the inhabitants, it turns out some speak in a language which is basically reversed English. When it moves to their point of view, they speak in perfect, normal English with Chowder and Mung becoming the ones speaking the reversed languages.
- A Disney short, "Morris the Midget Moose", has a small bit when a moose talks...and after weird noises come out, the narrator translates for us. (It should be noted that the narrator is an old bug...so apparently we're hearing it in their bug language).
- In Fantastic Four: The Animated Series, the first appearance of the Skrulls has them in their mothership originally speaking their native language. Then the action pauses, and Stan Lee pops up in a bubble to use the Mighty Marvel Language Converter to translate their speech to English for the rest of the episode.
- Hurricanes: Whenever Stavros Garkos is having a conversation with either his brother Spiro or his sister Melinda, they speak in English despite the fact the three of them are Greeks. Given the nature of some of these conversations, it'd be a good idea for them to speak Greek even (especially) if there's someone listening.
- Used often in Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures. In "The Mummies of Malenque," for example, the bad guys talk to each other in English despite the fact that they're Colombian and there are no English-speakers around to hear them (that they know of). Well, they interject a few words in Spanish here and there to make it seem "realistic," but the trope stands. Heck, even the Malenque mummies speak in English when they're revived...
- Kappa Mikey takes place almost entirely in Japan, yet everyone speaks English and have various American accents, mainly because it's 100% a Nicktoon for American children, except for on-screen Japanese characters on signage. No one even uses Japanese honorifics or phrases. In the pilot, American character Mikey can't read Japanese on a dinner menu and needs helps translating it, but that is the only instance in the whole show where this trope is ever observed. It isn't clear if Mikey simply learned Japanese quickly, or everyone else already knows English.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Not stated until late in the series, but it's eventually revealed that the characters are actually speaking a language called Ponish, so this trope applies in full. Makes sense since they are on an alien planet (not Earth). At least some effort was made to make a unique writing system that does not look like English, as well.
- In the Popeye cartoon "Private Eye Popeye", a spinach sign is shown in (correct) Arabic and then it changes to English when Popeye looks at it (at 5:09 in this clip
). - Rugrats renders the babies' babblings as English babyspeak, which is implied to be forgotten when growing up, with two interesting variations: Dil uses Hulk Speak because he's a newborn, and Angelica is a 3-year-old who does speaks English but can understand the babblings of the rest. Susie and a handful of other older children the babies meet can understand the baby talk and speak normally with the adults. After the second movie Chuckie can speak the word "no" to adults but that's about it.
- It can be inferred that, due to Aku's reign starting with ancient Japan, the title character of Samurai Jack can understand everyone because the Common Tongue in Aku's domain is old world Japanese.
- The Simpsons: Parodied in the segment "Hot Child in the City" of "Tales from the Public Domain", which has Simpsons characters recast in roles from the story of Joan of Arc. As the French army are besieging a castle with a trebuchet:Wiggum: Alright garçons! Trois, deux, un!
Lou: Huh?
Wiggum: No, un! You know, French for "one"!
Lou: Well, you keep switching back between French and English!
Wiggum: Just fire the damn thing! - Lampshaded in South Park with the Afghan equivalents of the four boys."Cartman": Why would we help the Americans? That doesn't make any sense!
"Stan": We are speaking English! How does that make sense?
"Cartman": ...fine. - Lampshaded in a VeggieTales short about the life of St. Patrick.Lutfi: The people of Ireland spoke a different language, but we're going to have everyone speak English. Like in Star Trek!
Pig: (looks up at audience from grazing) Even the pigs?
Lutfi: No, not the pigs.
Pig: Okay. (goes back to grazing) - Eliza from The Wild Thornberrys can speak to animals. To humans though her Animal Talk just sounds like she's making animal sounds.
- In the Young Justice (2010) episode "Downtime", Aqualad and Aquaman's conversation in their first scene is subtitled, and then the Atlantean dialogue is rendered in English for the rest of the episode.
- Due to a character trying to cast a spell (while chanting in Atlantean) that backfired and "hit" the audience causing us to understand Atlantean.
Exceptions
- Lady Rainicorn in Adventure Time only speaks to Jake in unsubtitled Korean, and he to her in English; they understand each other's language but stick to the custom, the only exception being when Rainicorn announces her pregnancy.
- Averted in the episode "Lady Rainicorn of the Crystal Dimension", where English subtitles are provided for the Korean dialogue.
