Basic Trope: A character says something in a foreign language that is completely different from what they intended to say.
- Straight: Alice is visiting Bob in The Netherlands and tries to say "I would like to buy an apple" in Dutch note from a shopkeeper, but actually says "There are cats in my helicopter." note
- Exaggerated: Alice tries to say "Hello" in Dutch note but ends up reciting the Lords' Prayer!
- Downplayed: Alice tries to say "I would like to buy an apple" in Dutch, but actually says "I would like to buy an orange". note
- Justified:
- A liar wrote Alice's phrasebook.
- The phrase was across pages in the phrasebook, but some pages were stuck, causing Alice to skip over to a different phrase.
- Alice had no dictionary, so she had to just guess.
- Alice tried to translate from the base words, not knowing that the result has a completely unrelated meaning.note
- Inverted: Alice tries to say "There are cats in my helicopter." in English, but she instead says "I would like to buy an apple."
- Subverted:
- It turns out that Alice didn't really say, "There are cats in my helicopter".
- Alice did indeed mean to say that she had cats in her helicopter.
- Double Subverted: That was what the Dutch shopkeeper thought Alice was trying to communicate. It makes more sense than what she really said, which was "There are helicopters in my cat". note
- Parodied: After the mishap with the shopkeeper, Alice goes back to her helicopter — where her cats are waiting.
- Averted: Alice manages to say "I would like to buy an apple" in Dutch correctly.
- Zigzagged: Alice says several things in Dutch. Some are correct, some are not, and the incorrect ones have varying levels of craziness.
- Enforced:
- To throw in some comedy, whilst trying to teach Dutch.
- To demonstrate the quality of Dumbass Books Dictionaries compared to the Golden Books Dictionaries the commercial is promoting.
- Lampshaded: "Are you aware that you just told me there were cats in your helicopter?"
- Invoked: Bob lies that "I would like to buy an apple" in Dutch is a certain phrase. That phrase actually means "There are cats in my helicopter".
- Exploited: Alice learns Dutch through trial and error by this.
- Defied: Alice looks up "I would like to buy an apple" in Dutch.
- Discussed: "How do you say that in Dutch? I don't want to come off as a fool by telling him there are cats in my helicopter or something."
- Conversed: "Remember when Alice was trying to speak Dutch in that episode and she said that there were cats in her helicopter?"
- Implied: What Alice said in Dutch is not revealed, but the shopkeeper looks confused.
- Deconstructed:
- After Alice tries multiple times to communicate in Dutch, but ends up saying something silly every time, causing her to never come back.
- Alice inadvertently says something offensive.
- Reconstructed: Alice decides to learn the language later, and then says her sentences correctly. Sometimes, though, she says "There are cats in my helicopter!" in Dutch as an inside joke.
- Played for Laughs: Cringe Comedy.
- Played for Drama: Poor Communication Kills.
Back to My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels
