History Main / AsLongAsItSoundsForeign

* The manga ''Jackals'' is set in America at the tail end of the 19th century. Its main protagonists are Nicole D. Heyward (a ''Puerto Rican man'') and ''Huya'' Godfrey (a white guy). Some translations try to soften the blow by romanizing the first guy's name as "Nichol", but they're not fooling anyone. Also, his mother, who is actually from Puerto Rico, is ''Lokishii'' Heyward. The fan translation has tried to make ''that'' less ridiculous by changing it to "Roxy", but that's not quite what the kana spells out. And no, she's never been married. Roxy Heyward from late 19th century Puerto Rico. ''Sheeeeesh''.

** "Spanish gibberish with a shrieking accent" is how most Mexicans (and probably Cubans) would describe Puerto Rican Spanish, if they were in an unkind mood.

* As Long As It Looks Elvish... Creator/JRRTolkien invented the tengwar script as a writing system for Middle-earth. The rules for writing in tengwar are complicated, and vary depending on where you are, when you are, and what language you're writing; one sign could stand for different sounds depending on the writing mode. So when people started making fonts to let them write tengwar on the computer, they usually mapped them to the keys in the tengwar's "grid"-formation. This is relatively easy to use, if you know what you're doing. Unfortunately, there are still people who ''don't'' know what they're doing who make fanart/fansites/whatever with little decorative bits of tengwar floating around, and who get the tengwar just by grabbing a font and typing things in literally. This leads to drawings of Elwe Singollo that are labeled, in beautiful and elegant Elvish lettering, "Febw Gywnghweehw".

* The choruses of the ''[[TheGoonShow Ying TongSong]]'' sound to English speakers like Chinese (or nonsense Chinese), but were never intended by SpikeMilligan to be aanything other than pure nonsense. The lyric was derived from the name of a friend of Milligan's called Edgington (nicknamed "Edgyingtong") who bet Milligan that he couldn't get a song with only two chords into the record chart.

* In-universe example in ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'': After carefully checking that Miss Hattie doesn't know Spanish, Gru tells her in a romantic tone "You have a face ''como un burro''." [[spoiler:"You have a face like a (male) donkey."]]

* The Special Act of ''Series/PrettyGuardianSailorMoon'' has Ami speaking in some kind of pseudo-English. (Previous episodes had real English when required, however.)
** Well, this troper watched the Special Act, and Ami does in fact speak real English. It's just [[AsianSpeekeeEngrish really broken and with a heavy accent.]]

** They are the first, to this troper's knowledge, to correctly use the phrase" do svidania", which is normally used in movies to mean "good bye". To be fair, that is what it means, but in the context of "see you later". It means "until (our) meeting". Which means you wouldn't say it to a guy you're about to shoot (unless you're very religious). The proper word in this case would be "proshchai" (a final goodbye). [[TimCurry Premier Cherdenko]] uses it correctly.

** ''Civilization V'' did away with the talking units. They just grunt now. Instead, they introduced talking leaders. The phrases the leaders say and the subtitles are completely different, even for leaders like GeorgeWashington and Queen Elizabeth I. There is still the problem of Rameses II not using proper Ancient Egyptian (this is justified by ''no one'' knowing what it's supposed to like) and other historical characters using modern-day versions of the languages. For example, CatherineTheGreat sounds like a modern Russian woman despite being born in a 18th century German principality (her subjects often complained at not being able to understand her heavily-accented Russian). Washington also sounds like he could be living in the 21st century. This troper can't speak for any others.
* Events of ''[[HalfLife Half-Life]] 2'' take place in an unspecified Eastern European location, so the game features quite a few inscriptions in Bulgarian.

*** Neither final S nor final Z is pronounced as "Sh" in Brazilian Portuguese. X is, though.
**** The troper above has evidently not spoken much with Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro, who frequently pronounce final S as "Sh" and final Z as "Zh", especially the further you go down the socioeconomic ladder.

* The ComicBook/{{X-Men}}'s Cajun mutant, Gambit, likes to toss some French into his dialogue. He sometimes calls Rogue ''"chéri"'' (dear)... which would be nice if he weren't using the masculine form of the word. Luckily for our grammatically-challenged hero, there is no ''audible'' difference between ''"chéri"'' and ''"chérie"''.

** Schnitzel is best known in the US as chicken-fried steak, which was invented when Austrian (or perhaps Bavarian) immigrants in Texas decided to make it with cube steak rather than veal cutlet (cube steak is far, ''far'' cheaper, and while beef is omnipresent in Texas, veal is less so for a variety of reasons).

* New Age "Native American spirituality" types often greet with "osiyo" and end with "mitakuye oyasin". The former is Cherokee. The latter is Lakota, thousands of miles away, and translates as "all my relatives" - which, without a verb, means nothing.

* The alien BountyHunter Embo from ''StarWarsTheCloneWars'' speaks the fictional Kyuzo language, which is really just Dave Filoni speaking intentionally bad French. Interviews say that he mostly just read it out of some French ''{{Smurfs}}'' books, but at least once (in the episode "Crisis on Naboo"), Embo actually says an intelligible French word that fits the situation he's in ("Allez", when telling the other bounty hunters to move).

*** And to be brutally honest, one can't expect Armenians to portray Turks as anything but [[CardCarryingVillain horrible]] [[HumanoidAbomination soulless]] [[CompleteMonster monsters]]. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide Not that we can blame them...]]

*** Even more ironically, this bends "latte" back into "not foreign"--the difference in meaning is the clearest indication that it's a naturalized loanword: in this case describing a specific style of coffee with milk, for which there is no native English term.

* Partially averted by HayaoMiyazaki in maybe a full half of his productions. Those which don't take place specifically in Japan have a sort of Not-Quite-Japanese, Not-Quite-European flavor that leaves the viewer to wonder where, exactly, he's supposed to be. But in the end we rarely care, because the storytelling works for us.

* ''Anime/ExcelSaga'' : Although the English used by the paramilitaries in the action movie episode is grammatically perfect, it's apparently delivered by actors who haven't a clue what the words are intended to mean (and only the vaguest grasp of English pronunciation). This is deliberate parody of the trope - the Japanese subtitles (which the English subs of the scene follow) are far more eloquent, often to the point where they have very little to do with what is spoken. It's also [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in the English dub. Originally when the soldier asks her "What is your purpose?" in a really strong Japanese accent Excel just responds "I don't know." In the dub she says [[{{Pun}} "A big fish?"]]

* In the manga ''PeaceMaker'', which is set in the American Southwest during the late 1800s (you know, a Western), a lot of the character names are... unlikely. The main character (who is male) is called Hope, and his DisappearedDad's name is Peace. At one point they encounter an elderly woman named ''Joshua''. The series is otherwise enjoyable, but it's apparent that the mangaka didn't know what names were for what.

** With a lot of the surnames it seems like the writer just opened up a French furnishing catalog and picked whatever words he thought sounded good, so we end up with names that translate to things like Lelouch and Nunnally Red Lamp, Shirley Window, and Rivalz World of Wool Brushes.

** Most of the victims' names are examples of this trope, as was L, whose real name is [[spoiler: L Lawliet]]. In ''Death Note 13: How to Read'', the writer of the manga admits that he made up the names of the victims randomly, so that no real names would show up as having been written down in the Death Note.
** The bizarre [[spoiler: Quillsh Wammy]], which is [[spoiler: Watari]]'s true name. No wonder he used an alias...
*** Oddly, his English actor's name is [[spoiler: French Tickner]], which is just barely an improvement.
* Piccolo from the ''Manga/DragonBall'' series. His name means "small/little" in Italian. In the Italian version of the manga and the movies his name remained unvaried, but in the TV series his name, along with that of many other characters, was adapted. His first incarnation was given the name... "Al-Satan" (the same name they had already given to Chichi's father earlier in the series!), while his second one received the name "Junior". Oh, and the God of Earth was called "The Supreme".

* In ''PlawresSanshiro'' the closing titles song ends with the lyrics "Craft Love", that make absolutely no sense either in the context of the song or indeed any context.

*** It makes more sense if you know that the term for a "Whole" - a normal, non-Hollow ghost - is actually "Plus" in the original Japanese. "Menos" doesn't just mean "less"; it means "Minus." So "Menos Grande" is likely meant to be interpreted as "Giant Minus (Hollow)".
*** This is also the case with the enemy of the final arc, [[spoiler: the Vandenreich - the pronunciation is listed besides kanji meaning "invisible country," and while "reich" is German, Vanden doesn't appear to be an actual word - possibly a misreading of Vonden, meaning "of the". It might also be an example of Kubo's musical fanboyism as a nod to German metal band Vanden Plas (who themselves were car fanboys who named their group after the famous Flemish coachbuilders that eventually gave their name to a brand of Jaguar).]]

* Somewhat subverted in episode 10 of ''GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'', where in-show foreigners Suzuki Sato and Tanaka Watanabe, both CIA agents, don't bother to check their Japanese aliases for simple things like using two surnames as a full name before entering the country. The Japanese officials with whom they interact are understandably befuddled upon seeing their calling cards. They're [[AcceptableTargets obnoxious Americans]] with their own sinister agenda and we're supposed to dislike them anyway. To add insult to injury, they look and act very much like some like racist stereotypes of the Japanese, which is probably supposed to reflect their opinions of the country they've been assigned to.

** "Arystar Krory" was named after a real person called "Aleister Crowley", but the author deliberately went with a different spelling. There is also a Mexican man with the name "Winters Socalo", a German woman named "Miranda Lotto", two Chinese siblings named "Lenalee" and "Komui", and an American man named "Tup Dop". "Marie" is a man, and it seems that's his last name, meaning his first name is "''Noise''". A woman who's name was spelled "Crea" in the series itself has her name more correctly spelled "Claire" in a [[AllThereInTheManual data book]].

* In ''Mai The Psychic Girl'' one of Mai's enemies is the daughter of the East-German ambassador. Her name is Turm Garten - Tower Garden. In German, Tower is a male noun.

* ''TransformersSuperGodMasterforce'' doesn't even try to give believable names to characters who aren't the Autobot Headmaster Juniors. The Decepticon Headmaster Juniors, for instance, are Bullhorn, Wilder, and Cancer - respectively Mexican, American, and Chinese. That said, since those names are bizarrely appropriate for their transtectors' altmodes (a hellish bull, a crazed wolf, and a sickening crab creature), they might simply be aliases - not that there's ever any indication of this being the case. Most of the other characters who hail from the west are only afforded, well, Transformer names like "Road King" and "Doubleclouder".

* Fay's language in an early episode of ''TsubasaReservoirChronicle''. Apparently the director wanted it to be French-sounding gibberish, which it most definitely is. In the manga it's written in Cyrillic.

* The time displaced DC character Manitou Raven is said to be from the native American tribe that eventually became the Apache. Manitou (meaning "spirit") is actually an Algonquin word. For Europeans and others who may not know where the Apaches and Algonquins live relative to each other, [[CriticalResearchFailure this is about the equivalent of assuming a Norwegian word or myth can equate to a Georgian one]].

** ''That'' isn't right - Nikolaivitch is a masculine middle name, translating as "son of Nikolai." Since Ilyana's a girl, her middle name should be "Nikolaivna" (daughter of Nikolai).

** Chaplin's Hitler-like role in ''TheGreatDictator'' delivers a foaming-at-the-mouth speech in Tomanian, one of the funniest fake foreign languages ever: a pastiche mixture of English, German and Yiddish nonsense in which such words as "Sauerkraut" and "Katzenjammer" recur.

* Sacha Baron Cohen takes full advantage of this trope in his ''Film/{{Borat}}'' sketches and movie; his spoken "Kazakh" is actually a (sometimes, but not always, nonsensical) mix of Yiddish, Polish, Gangstafied Hebrew, and other languages in an overdone Slavic accent. His written notes are in straight Hebrew. Also his sidekick in the film, Azamat, is actually speaking real Armenian. Almost all the Cyrillic writing used in the film and marketing materials is gibberish created by typing English words into a keyboard set for Cyrillic letters.

** [[FauxCyrillic The film's title on the DVD case sorta LOOKS like 'Borat' but in cyrillic it's closer to saying something like 'Voyadt']].

** Wrong. It was filmed in Malta and much of the Turkish was in fact Maltese, spoken by local actors. In the court scene, the prosecutor - who has much of the Turkish dialogue - is in fact speaking Turkish as he's a Turkish actor based in the UK. There were no Armenians involved.
* In ''Film/TheCourtJester'' the English Hubert Hawkins (DannyKaye) pretends to be a jester from Italy. When a guard asks him why he doesn't have an accent, he replies that he is fluent in many languages and demonstrates it by talking a lot of nonsensical gibberish that sounds very much like French, Italian and German. (This skill was then known as "double-talk", and Kaye was a famous master of it.) The guard, who doesn't understand any of this, allows him to pass.

* In ''Film/TopSecret'', most of the German spoken is completely irrelevant Yiddish phrases. For example, when supposedly ordering at a restaurant, the love interest is in fact telling the waiter, "''Folg' mich a gang und gai in drerd''" -- "Do me a favor and drop dead." At one point a German soldier does respond to an order in German, severely intoning "''Ich liebe dich, mein Schatze''" -- "I love you, darling." More fake languages abound: the Swedish lines are English run backwards, and a priest reciting the last rites for a condemned man speaks mostly in stock Latin phrases, throwing in one sentence in Pig Latin ("ou're-yay oing-gay to get ied-fray in the air-chay").

--> '''Du Quois''' (introducing the American to the men) : ''This is Chevalier, Montage, Détente, Avant-Garde and Déjà-Vu [...] Over there, Croissant, Soufflet, Escargot and Chocolate Mousse''
* In ''[[Film/TheBourneSeries The Bourne Identity]]'', the name on Bourne's Russian passport is written "Foma Kiniaev" in Latin letters and "Aschf Lshtshfum" (Ащьф Лштшфум) in Cyrillic letters. Apparently, the designers of the prop just typed the Bourne's fake Russian name (Foma Kinaev) in the Russian keyboard layout without actually translating it. The name was corrected in ''The Bourne Supremacy''.
* Certainly true of the sort-of Indian cult in ''[[Music/TheBeatles Help!]]'' Made funnier by the fact that the British actors make essentially no attempt to conceal their...[[BuffySpeak Britishness]].
* In [[Film/FantasticFour Fantastic Four]] there's a cargo ship named "Головка пальца ноги", which means "Head of toe" in Russian. The ship's owner must be a very original joker.

** The books do give some explanation -- for some reason it's a Francophone country which used to be part of Italy. And the Amelia and Thermopolis parts come from her (American) mother. And no accents, obviously.

* The execrable ''Film/TheWildWorldOfBatwoman'' (given a sound thrashing by the guys on ''MST3K'') had the main characters' seance frequently interrupted by a Chinese spirit. The spirit's Chinese mainly consisted of saying "ching", "chang" and "chong" over and over again in random combination, causing Tom Servo to deadpan "You know, that ''may'' not be real Chinese." As Mike says, "To every Asian and every ''human being'', we apologize for that last scene."

* Alien language examples abound in ''Franchise/StarWars: ReturnOfTheJedi''. The Ewok speak Tagalog, a Philippine dialect. Huttese spoken by Greedo, Jabba and others is bad Quechua, spoken in a variety of dialects. Lando's copilot Nien Nunb speaks the African language of Haya.
* Apparently those Westerns which cast Native Americans in speaking roles told them to speak their own language to add some authenticity, which would either be subtitled or translated by another character. The actors complied, but said whatever they felt like, often saying obscene or insulting things about the director, the other actors, etc. There are apocryphal stories of Native American audiences (in)explicably cracking up laughing during scenes that were meant to be dramatic.

* Movies made during WorldWarTwo that took place in the Pacific Theater usually had Koreans and Chinese as stand-ins for the Japanese. They were told to say phrases like 'I tie your shoe, you tie my shoe' faster than normal to sound like they were speaking Japanese. This was much more common during the war, when actual Japanese people were [[strike:in internment camps]] unavailable.

** However, whenever an extra speaks it's Sinhalese. This is because the Indian government didn't allow them to shoot such an inaccurate portrayal of Indian culture in the country, so the production moved to Sri Lanka.

* In one children's movie, the young English protagonists found themselves in New Zealand watching Maori 'savages' dancing around a fire whilst chanting "Tahi! Rua! Toru! Wha!" repeatedly. As any New Zealand schoolchild should be able to tell you this actually is genuine te reo Maori (Maori language). It translates to "One! Two! Three! Four!".

* ''MillionDollarBaby'': ''Mo chuisle'' is mispronounced as "muh kwushla" rather than it should be "muh khushleh". The phrase is shown spelled in a nonstandard way. Also, Clint Eastwood's character claims to be translating Creator/WilliamButlerYeats' poetry from Irish into English, but Yeats had only basic Irish and never wrote any Irish poetry.

* ''{{Zulu}}'': According to legend the Zulu messenger was instructed to simply 'say something' in his native language as he collapsed as King Cetewayo's feet. This was a mistake as what he chose to say was 'kiss my behind' or words to that effect. The Zulu actor playing the king managed to keep a straight face. But audiences of their compatriots didn't.

* ''Film/TheProducers'': While Uma Thurman certainly tries to speak Swedish -- it fails to the point of her lines having to be subtitled on Swedish releases. The whole thing is a bit odd since they managed to get some stuff right and some stuff plain odd. Like her "catchphrase", "''God dag min vännen''", which translates into "hello my the friend". Probably it's a mistake for "''vänner''", which would make it "hello my friends." But her accent is no way Swedish, just generically North European, and apart from baby grammar she indicates foreignness by refering to herself in the third person. Why this should sound "foreign" is anyone's guess, since pronouns are the first thing one learns.

* A {{Lzherusskie}} flavoured example would be "general Radek", a minor antagonist from the movie ''Film/AirForceOne''. Radek sounds like an awfully Russian name, da? Well... nyet! "Radek" is not a Russian name - in fact, it's not even a (usual) surname in any Slavic language. It's a given name, specifically a typical Czech diminutive of the male name Radoslav (as a certain [[Series/StargateAtlantis Dr. Radek Zelenka]] will tell you). On the other hand, there was an actual person named [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Radek Karl Radek]], who was a genuine Communist at the time of RedOctober. On the other hand, it was a self-selected name; he was born Karol Sobelsohn.

* Victor Spinetti had the possibly unique ability to do this with English in English language films. In ''Oh! What a Lovely War'' and ''Film/MagicalMysteryTour'' he plays drill sergeants who bellow incomprehensible gibberish at high speed (although in ''Magical Mystery Tour'', the phrase "And get your bloody hair cut!" is very audible). Spinetti was also able to do this with Italian.

* ''InglouriousBasterds'' played with in-universe when the Basterds try to pass themselves off as Italians in spite of speaking only a few words of Italian and having atrocious accents. In turns out that at least one Nazi has enough of a passing familiarity to notice.
* Averted by the filmmakers as best as they could in ''Film/TheMummyTrilogy'', where they had an official Egyptologist professor coaching actors on how to pronounce their lines in Ancient Egyptian - a reconstruction of it, anyway. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTTVRpGoPVo This video]], on the other hand, reveals that Ardeth Bay may have said the same Arabic line on three separate occasions to mean three different things.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek IV: [[Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome The Voyage Home]]'' had the whalers speak (bad) Finnish, even though Finland is landlocked to north and has absolutely no whaling waters.

* In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', all of the Asian characters in Hong Kong speak flawless Chinese...in the wrong dialect. The standard dialect used in Hong Kong is Cantonese, whereas the characters all speak Mandarin. This could be {{handwave}}d by the recent push in Hong Kong to learn Mandarin, but surely you would revert to your native language if the Batman had come to kidnap you?
** As a white-collar businessman, it wouldn't be surprising for him to be a native (or at least co-native) Mandarin speaker. The security forces should probably be speaking Cantonese, though, although it's not inconceivable to think the same would apply to them - or that the characters would simply be from Mainland China, where the dominant language is Mandarin.

* ''Rescue Dawn'', the actors who are supposed to portray Vietcong fighters are actually from Thailand and as a result, they all speak Lao and Vietnamese in the wrong accent.

* ''{{Limitless}}'' has a scene where Bradley Cooper is speaking Chinese to a waiter at a Chinese restaurant. There aren't any subtitles but ask any Chinese person what he said and they'll tell you that it's incomprehensible.
* Subverted in ''Film/{{Titanic}}''. The Swedish emigrants speak perfectly correct Swedish, including situationally appropriate levels of formality. The actors' accents are atrocious enough to be nigh-incomprehensibe to a native speaker, but once you get through that it's apparent that research was done.
* In one scene of ''Film/RobinHoodMenInTights'' Robin Hood is saying goodbye to Maid Marian in different languages. All of them are correct besides the final one "Ting tao tay!" which sounds like Chinese but means nothing. RuleOfFunny applies though, as the joke is about how ridiculous Robin sounds saying it. "Zài jiàn" is less amusing.

* Averted in the original ''RedDawn''. The Russians generally speak Russian among themselves, and the Cuban/Central Americans speak Spanish. At one point Colonel Bella switches effortlessly from Spanish to Russian when speaking to both types of troops.
* In-universe example in ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'': After carefully checking that Miss Hattie doesn't know Spanish, Gru tells her in a romantic tone "You have a face ''como un burro''." [[spoiler: "You have a face like a (male) donkey."]]

* Nanny Ogg of the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novels usually manages to make herself understood no matter where she goes, although her linguistic approach is described as "gabbling away in her own personal [[UsefulNotes/EsperantoTheUniversalLanguage Esperanto]]". "Excuse me, young homme! Trois beers avec us, silver plate", or 'Mein herr! Mucho vino avec zei grassy ass'

*** In the Dutch version, he is named Tweebloesem (Twoblossom) the literal translation of Twoflower would be 'Tweebloem'.

* In ''TalesOfMU'', the Yokai Girls from Japan-like "Yokan" fall into this category, with names like "Maliko" that ''almost'' sound Japanese but not quite. However, a recently revealed bit of plot indicates that all Yokano names are originally Japanese-derived but that there is a story-related reason why all 4 of the characters introduced from that region have "jarringly" un-Japanese nicknames.
* Harry Dresden, of ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' uses [[CanisLatinicus mostly fake and/or ungrammatical Latin]] for magic words. This is explained as a sort of emotional boundary from the spells, and it's noted that, when working spells, the important bit is not so much the words themselves, but rather that the words sound right to the individual using the spell. (It's also established in one of the novels that Harry's grasp of actual Latin, used instead of English in meetings of the White Council of wizards, is ''terrible.'' As he repeatedly says, "Damn correspondence course.")

* The French policeman in DanBrown's ''TheDaVinciCode'' is named Bezu Fache. While Fache is a real French name, the first name Bezu comes out to most French people as a. unheard of - there is not one Bezu X in the Paris phonebook, and b. hilarious, as the name evokes André Bézu, a "comic" singer from the eighties, mostly known for the very corny tune [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atu545VFbZg La Queuleuleu]]. Making things worse, Bézu - the singer - usually donned a caricatural French attire complete with a beret and a blue, red, and white bowtie, perhaps making Dan Brown's choice of a name an elaborate joke on cliches about France - or not.

* In ''TheSilenceOfTheLambs'', Hannibal Lecter is eventually given a dead little sister named Mischa, which is ordinarily diminutive form of a ''male'' name Mikhail (Michael). (However, as the website hannotations.com explains, this may be deliberate due to various symbolic elements in the name.) This is one of the many reasons why among fans of ''TheSilenceOfTheLambs'', ''Hannibal'' is often [[FanonDiscontinuity excluded from canon]].

* In H.P. Lovecraft's fiction the Necronomicon was penned by an Arab named Abdul Alhazred, a fictitious name Lovecraft came up with in his childhood. The name "Alhazred" doesn't exist in Arabic and couldn't exist given that "Abdul" ends with a suffix synonymous with the prefix of "Alhazred", so if the name were real then it would be something like "abd-el-Hazred".
** It is quite common however for Arabic names to be mangled as they get sifted through European/American sources.
*** In Arabic, " 'abd" ("عبد") means "servant". "El" is "the" or "of the" depending on context, and "Hazred", obviously, looks just like the English word "hazard", which means "danger". So, "servant of the danger"... amazing FridgeBrilliance on Lovecraft's part, if intentional, and spooky if not.
**** Not that surprising since "Alhazred" was coined after "Hazzard", Lovecraft mother's maiden name. (Oh, and by the way, the english word "hazard" come from the arabic "az-zar" : "dice game".)

* Creator/StephenKing's novel, ''Thinner'' contains passages supposedly in the Romani language. In fact, they're in Swedish, and mostly gibberish.

* R. J. Rummel ran into this a lot regarding his [[OriginalGeneration non-historical, foreign characters]] in his ''Never Again'' series. Chinese and Muslim characters got the most of this (and perhaps coincidentally, they were the villains of the second and third books.) TheMole of the second book (who is [[spoiler: also the EvilCounterpart of the female lead]]) is a Chinese assassin named Khoo Jy-ying, which is gibberish. She has Vietnamese ancestry as well, but that doesn't justify the name as it is still gibberish in that language also.
* Robert Ludlum is a faithful practitioner of this with Russian names like Nikolai Yurievich Yurievich. The English equivalent of this would be someone named Peterson Peterson. Russian middle names are patronymic, derived from father's name, and Russian family names rarely end in -vich, unless the person is of Polish heritage.
* The Japanese-sounding name "Moto" has been adopted by the fictional character ''Mr. Moto'' and by Filipino-Japanese actress Iwa Moto though "Moto" is not a Japanese name. Iwa Moto's real name is Eileen Iwamoto.

* In the season six finale of ''Series/ThirtyRock'' we see Hasidic Jews speaking in their native tounge (presumably Yiddish) and complaining about the sale of pork hot dogs in a Jewish area. The actual language that they're speaking is surprisingly decent Hebrew. It's also possible that the writers thought Hasidic Jews from New York speak Hebrew (they generally do not).

** When Hodges asks her what those two characters mean,since she's half Chinese, she replies something along the lines of "Why does white man think I speak Chinese?"

** And he did it by taking her to dinner and conversing entirely in his "language" refusing to speak or "understand" English, and Kane was not allowed to speak in English, either.

** In the killer joke sketch, a [[BrownNote joke so funny anyone who hears it dies laughing]] is rendered in mock German as "Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja, ober der beierhund und flipperwald gersput" which is nonsense, but several of the words are actually German. Translated, the joke is: "If is the nun piece git and slotermeyer? Yes, sputted over the meadow-dog and flipper-forest". It loses something in the translation.

* ''{{Saiyuki}}'' gives the female name Hazel to a male priest... Slightly offset by the fact that he is rather {{Bishonen}}, anyway.

** Battler's name is LampShaded by him in the sound novels, due to him complaining how odd it is.

* Averted in the original ''RedDawn''. The Russians generally speak Russian among themselves, and the Cuban/Central Americans speak Spanish. At one point Colonel Bella switches effortlessly from Spanish to Russian when speaking to both types of troops.

[[/folder]]

* Sophie B. Hawkins' "As I Lay Me Down" has the exotic-sounding but nonsensical syllables "ooh la kah koh" as backing vocals. She once claimed it meant "wash your feet before you sleep" in "an indigenous language of the Ballantine tribe" [hottip:*: Ballantine is in fact Sophie B. Hawkins' middle name]], and this joke tends to get taken at face value.

* Sophie B. Hawkins' "As I Lay Me Down" has the exotic-sounding but nonsensical syllables "ooh la kah koh" as backing vocals. She once claimed it meant "wash your feet before you sleep" in "an indigenous language of the Ballantine tribe", and this joke tends to get taken at face value.

** Also,the French Resistance have the right French names, except Chocolate Mousse. It should have been "Mousse au Chocolat".
--> '''Du Quois''' (introducing the american to the men) : ''This is Chevalier, Montage, Détente, Avant-Garde and Déjà-Vu [...] Over there, Croissant, Soufflet, Escargot and Chocolate Mousse''

* CirqueDuSoleil uses 'invented' lyrics in many of its songs -- and in some of its clowns and characters' dialogue. Averted somewhat, in that the lyrics are never supposed to pass for a specific real language, and in fact using invented song lyrics is something of a Cirque trademark, first appearing around the time the company began to make a name for itself as a different kind of circus.
** Also played with somewhat, in that Cirque has songs in quite a variety of ''real'' languages, to the point where, depending on the show, you can never really be quite sure whether or not you're listening to music in a real language.

** For example, the title on the DVD case sorta LOOKS like 'Borat' but in cyrillic it's closer to saying something like 'Voyadt'

* In ''[[Film/TheBourneSeries The Bourne Identity]]'', the name on Bourne's Russian passport is written "Foma Kiniaev" in Latin letters and "Aschf Lshtshfum" (Ащьф Лштшфум) in Cyrillic letters. Apparently, the designers of the prop just typed the name in the Russian keyboard layout without actually translating it. The name was corrected in ''The Bourne Supremacy''.

* In ''TheSilenceOfTheLambs'', Hannibal Lecter is eventually given a dead little sister named Mischa, which is ordinarily a masculine name roughly analogous to "Michael". (However, as the website hannotations.com explains, this may be deliberate due to various symbolic elements in the name.) This is one of the many reasons why among fans of ''TheSilenceOfTheLambs'', ''Hannibal'' is often [[FanonDiscontinuity excluded from canon]].

* ''TheSimpsons''
** The writers mangled the title of the episode "Burns verkaufen der Kraftwerk", which should be "Burns verkauft das Kraftwerk".
** "Endut! Hoch Hech!"
** "Die Bart Die."