Basic Trope: Pretending you don't speak a language.
- Straight:
- Although she's from Germany, Alice speaks English fine. However, when Bob brings up something she doesn't want to discuss, she claims she doesn't speak English.
- Although she's from Germany, Alice speaks English fine. However, when Bob is in earshot, she speaks German and acts like she doesn't understand English.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice claims not to know how to talk.
- Alice is an Omniglot and passes herself as someone not able to speak English or any language other than German.
- Downplayed:
- Alice claims she can't speak English very well.
- Alice doesn't outright claim to not speak English, but dodges Bob's questions about whether she can by staying silent and acting as though she might not understand what he's asking.
- Justified:
- Alice can't think of anything to say and is not above lying.
- On a first meeting, Alice wants to know what Bob and Charlie really think of her and see if they'll bad-mouth her in English, thinking she won't understand what they're saying.
- Alice is extremely self-conscious about her English. When the native speaker Bob tries to talk to her, she's so afraid of sounding stupid that she decides it'd be less embarrassing to pretend she can't speak English at all.
- Alice is vetting prospective translators for the company on their ability to translate spoken German as opposed to written German.note
- Inverted: Alice claims to speak a language she can't speak.
- Subverted: It turns out Alice really doesn't speak English.
- Double Subverted: She continues to make this claim even after she learns how to speak English.
- Parodied:
- Alice says "I don't speak English" in perfect English.
- Alice was born and raised in England. She still tries to claim she doesn't speak English.
- Alice makes several of these claims, each in a different language.
- Averted: Alice doesn't lie about not speaking any language.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice can speak several different languages, with varying levels of fluency, so it's hard to tell if she's using this trope or not.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: "What do you mean, you don't speak English? You've been speaking English fine up till now."
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Charles, who is a Completely Unnecessary Translator, makes money from Bob paying him to translate what Alice says into German, which she's pretending is the only language she speaks.
- Defied:
- Alice is proud that she learned English very well in high school in Germany, and doesn't want to lie about not being able to speak it.
- Bob tricks her by saying "By the way, your shoelaces are untied", prompting Alice to look at her shoelaces and inadvertently reveal that she can speak English.
- Discussed: "Was Alice lying when she said she couldn't speak English?"
- Conversed: "Why do these characters sometimes pretend they don't speak a language they clearly do speak?"
- Implied: Alice claims not to speak English, but she's speaking it three days later. Whether she was lying or is a fast learner is left unclear.
- Deconstructed:
- Alice has to keep the lie going, which becomes increasingly difficult as more and more important information is given to her in English.
- Bob knows that Alice is from a country where English is a compulsory foreign language, so he sees straight through her lie.
- Played for Laughs:
- Cringe Comedy ensues when Alice claims she can't speak English, so Bob starts speaking Italian, which is the only language he speaks apart from English. Alice can't speak Italian but tries to play along.
- Cringe Comedy ensues when Alice, a native English speaker, claims she can't speak English and tries to use her high school Spanish instead.Alice: Uhh... no hablo inglés?
- Alice says "I don't speak English" in German. Then Bob reveals that he knows German, and Alice abruptly switches to English to deny that she knows German.
- Alice only knows English for a specific conversation, including the sentence explaining this.
- Played for Drama: Bob finds out that Alice lied about not knowing English so that she could avoid some important discussions.
Back to Language Fluency Denial.
