History Main / EloquentInMyNativeTongue

* [=SungWong Cho=] also known as ''[[WebVideo/ProZD]]'' has a skit "[[https://youtu.be/T_PuZBdT2iM?si=t2OKsi9X5TMJDJaz getting into a conversation in a language you don't actually speak that well]]" based on his real experiences of being a [=Korean-American=] who doesn't speak Korean very well as he grew up speaking English and the sheer panic he experiences when encountering a Korean person who can't speak much English.

Can be used to hide the CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass, and may be intentionally used for ObfuscatingStupidity. Compare ElectiveBrokenLanguage (which can also be used for ObfuscatingStupidity), SwitchToEnglish, WorthlessForeignDegree, FauxFluency. SisterTrope to GracefulInTheirElement.

* Simon from ''Literature/{{Durarara}}'' who seems to only speak broken sushi sales pitches in Japanese yet has rather insightful conversations in Russian. Subverted with the Russian [[TheMafiya Mafiya]] member Vorona; she speaks Japanese fluently, but her tone and syntax come off as being robotic and stilted. It's mentioned that she talks better in Russian, but ''how much better'' is an everyone's guess -- she's a pretty strange girl in general.

* Inverted with Cyndi Manabe of ''Anime/BestStudentCouncil''. Throughout the series, she speaks halting, two-or-three word Engrish sentences, with the penultimate episode revealing she actually has fluent Japanese, but her mother, who ''isn't'' eloquent, convinced her it was incorrect.

* ''ComicBook/{{Blast}}'': At one point, Polza meets a Serbian day-laborer named Bojan. Despite barely being able to speak French, he's routinely referred to as a "poet" by the other workers and is shown to be surprisingly erudite if the translating they do is to be believed.

* ''ComicBook/{{Maus}}'': Vladek has some trouble with English grammar, but English is also his fifth language (after Yiddish, German, Polish and Hebrew). He is far from stupid, and very eloquent in both Polish and German.

* In ''ComicBook/SupermanSmashesTheKlan'', Mrs. Lee struggles to express herself completely in English, but in Cantonese she's far more articulate and passionate in her speech.

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/29961147/chapters/74618067#workskin Izuku Midoriya the Rabbit]]'': Izuku is, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a rabbit]] who needs a communicator to speak with humans. When he has to give the opening speech as the Sports Festival without his communicator, most of the audience can't understand his squeaks, honks, chirps, and foot thumpings. Mirko, the only one present who ''can'' understand him, is driven to tears by how inspirational his speech was. Later on, a video of Izuku and Mirko talking to each other in rabbit-speak goes viral due to how cute they sound. Unknown to everyone but Izuku and Mirko is that the two are having a heated argument, with the former [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech calling]] [[WhatTheHellHero out]] the latter for refusing to participate in the Yakuza Raid and rescue a little girl (Eri) because [[IWorkAlone "she doesn't do teamwork"]].

* ''Fanfic/TheMoonstoneCup'': Hadalsnan al-Dhi'b, the king of the ghuls, speaks in stilted Equestrian due to having learned the language later in life, and states that he's making sure that his son is learning it more fluently.

* Stitch of ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'' has elements of this, though normally seeming to be a SpeechImpairedAnimal when speaking English. Especially apparent in the movie's conclusion, Jumba even commenting on him making a good argument. A ''single syllable'' good argument[[note]]Supplemental material--which is [[ConLang rather consistent about this]]--indicates it was the word for "yes"[[/note]]. He also seems to be well versed in his native language's curses.

* To an extent, Marco in ''Literature/AnInstanceOfTheFingerpost'', who is eloquent in Italian and Latin, but clearly has some difficulties with English, that lead to misunderstandings because of the language gap. It does seem unlikely though that he's the gibbering FunnyForeigner in English that one of the other narrators presents him as, since none of the other narrators have this impression.

* ''Literature/WarriorCats'' has Midnight the badger, who has terrible grammar whenever trying to speak cat with any of the feline protagonists (she can also speak rabbit, fox, and, of course, badger). Despite sounding like she was dropped on her head, Midnight is just as insightful and intelligent and as any medicine cat, and has been very helpful to the Clans.

* Dave Sedaris's ''Me Talk Pretty One Day'', which causes his French teacher extreme grief. He finally understands French... but can't speak it properly himself.
* Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' has the wild men of the Drúadan Forest; they have no contact with outsiders, and are viewed as backward primitive creatures. Upon contact, their chief Ghân-buri-Ghân speaks sub-optimal Westron - but turns out to be quite smart, wise and knowing. This is further cemented when one reads [[AllThereInTheManual the other things Tolkien wrote about them]].

* Played straight in ''The Pickup'' by Nadine Gordimer. A white woman (South Africa, post-apartheid) meets an Arab man at a garage after her car breaks down, and invites him to lunch with her friends. He speaks decent English, but sometimes has difficulty with vocabulary (Gordimer portrays this in a sympathetic manner). Later, it turns out that he's an illegal immigrant, so he gets deported and she follows him back to his (unnamed) country... wherein the situation is reversed. Suddenly ''he's'' the eloquent one and ''she's'' the tongue-tied foreigner.
* Lampshaded in ''Literature/TheHallowedHunt'' by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold: Jokol the Skullsplitter speaks the local language brokenly, he's capable of composing epic poetry in an evening in his own language, and has memorized stories in the hundreds, if not thousands. He's called Skullsplitter because he can tell so many stories his men fell like their skulls will split.

* Detective Max Hornung in [[Creator/SidneySheldon Sidney Sheldon's]] ''Bloodline'' is so lousy at speaking either French or Italian others are unable to understand what he's trying to say. Some either take time to realize he's trying to speak in their language or simply need to be told.

* ''Literature/ThereIsNoEpicLootHereOnlyPuns'': Seth frequently tells the people of Durence that MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels, and almost gets thrown out of the village for seeking a "quest", but when he catches up with his old friend ''Quiss'', it's confirmed that he just speaks a very different language, and Quiss is equally bad at speaking that. And despite Seth looking like comedic relief, he's actually a very skilled, intelligent and powerful mage, whose ambition is to "water death my city" -- and it's not a joke. (Quiss, his peer, wants to ''burn the World Tree'', not to entirely consume it but just scorching it enough to remind it that it's not invulnerable.)

** Daenerys' Dothraki still needs a little work. "There are many dirts across the sea, like the dirt where I was born." As of Season 2, however, she's as fluent in Dothraki as she in the common tongue (which is spoken both in Westeros, the Free Cities, and Qarth). Likewise, in Astapor, it looks like she'll have to learn Valyrian if she doesn't want to be constantly insulted by assholes like Kraznys mo Nakloz. Subverted, however, as she purposefully waits until the control of the Unsullied has been given to her, before revealing that Valyrian is her ''mother tongue'', ordering the Unsullied to ransack the city and finally, paying Kraznys back for his rudeness by having Drogon burn him alive.

* ''Series/{{MADtv|1995}}'' had Ms. Swan, a ModernMinstrelsy Korean woman whose catchphrase was "[[ShapedLikeItself He look like a man]]!" One skit fell into this, as the audience was given insight into her ''thoughts'', which gave an incredibly detailed description of the person... before she blurted out her catch-phrase instead.
* A running gag on ''Series/ModernFamily'' is Gloria's frequent mangling of English, but it does hurt her deep down that no one knows how funny and smart she is in her own language (and when she's conversing with other Spanish speakers this very much seems to be the case). Her husband Jay eventually opts to take Spanish lessons so that he can be the one that sounds stupid every now and then.

* Wrestling/{{ECW}} wrestlers Super Crazy and Wrestling/YoshihiroTajiri's attempts at English tended to come out as YouNoTakeCandle. This [[SubvertedTrope still ended up impressing most of their coworkers]], who assumed they couldn't speak the language all. In Mexico and Japan both have trained dozens of wrestlers and Tajiri ran two promotions, so some degree of eloquence in their native tongues is to be expected.

* An gag early in ''Theatre/{{Hamilton}}'' is having Lafayette mispronounce the word "anarchy", much to the amusement of his (English-speaking) compatriots. Of course, he immediately recovers by using both the incorrect ''and'' correct pronunciations as rhymes ("monarchy"/"on-arch-ee" and "anarchy"/"panicky"). Not only that, but just one song earlier, he introduced himself in a flawless combination of French and English, ''and'' he has the fastest rap of anyone in the show (and the fastest lyrics of anyone on Broadway, ever). So it's somewhat of a subversion: not only is he eloquent in his native tongue, but he can probably do circles around you in his second language as well.

** That line is something of a GeniusBonus for folks familiar with Russian idioms, as there is a Russian expression about weapon-safety that goes "Bullets are stupid and sightless". So he's actually calling his opponents blind idiots. Clever, Heavy, very clever.
* There is an interesting version of this in ''VideoGame/Fallout2''. If you make a character with Intelligence less than 4, he is effectively, ahem, mentally handicapped. There is a character named Torr in one of the very first towns that is likewise handicapped, and normal players are unable to get much information out of him. Approach him with your own handicapped character and the ensuing conversation, while looking like two drooling men shouting random gibberish and nonsense at each other to the casual observer, is actually, when translated through the subtitles, a meeting of two great minds, with superbly polished manners and high level thought. Hilarity ensues.

** Ivan Dolvich originally spoke no English, but according to his in-game bio, he took an "English as a second language" course between Deadly Games and [=JA2=]. His Russian is fluent and eloquent (if somewhat heavy on the obscenities), his English is... comprehensible, barely. In the trailer for ''Back In Action'' his English is almost perfect, if heavily-accented; the games are a bit vague about how much time elapses between them, but presumably he's had time to practice.
** Robert "Steroid" Gontarski might be another case. His grammar isn't perfect, he sometimes lacks basic vocabulary and has relatively low Intelligence (compared to other AIM mercs), but most of his "dumb muscle" image stems from his Ahnuld-type voice. The Polish version of ''Unfinished Business'' actually gives him a speech pattern which is completely different (since he '''is''' speaking his native language now), but still remains believable. If only they hadn't changed the voice...

* In ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'', when Hisao calls Lilly in Scotland for the second time in her route, he gets her mother, and makes an attempt to ask for Lilly in English before switching to Japanese; luckily, her mother also speaks Japanese well, and is willing to accommodate him. English also appears to be his worst subject, as earlier in the route, he got a 43 on an English test.

* Inverted in ''Webcomic/JupiterMen''. Arrio is a partly Hispanic highschooler who is specifically flunking Spanish, much to Quintin's disbelief. He says he has to go to "trabago" (he means "trabajo", as in "work") and has to be corrected on it. This proves a detriment when he learns that all the spells and instructions in his SpellBook are written in Spanish.

* The Gragrum of ''Webcomic/TalesOfTheQuestor'' tend to speak the common language in a rather mangled way, using heavily broken sentence structure, but once their leader speaks in his own language, his sentence structure and use of metaphors improve dramatically and excel many later human speakers. The Rac Cona Daimh around there tend to [[FunetikAksent drawl]] too, but the single most capable lux user in the planet comes from there, and has the worst drawl of the lot, with many more practical and [[{{Mana}} lux-efficient]] spells coming from near the swamps. On the inverse side, a well-spoken Rac Cona Daimh pastor speaking the Gragum tongue is easily outwitted in a short conversation to the point of pulling his trump card nearly immediately and arranges sentences oddly. When talking to humans, the fairly intelligent Rac Cona Daimh also often find themselves trying to describe a sense that few humans have and sounding slightly crazy.

* Caleb from ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'' speaks pretty simple Common with a Zemnian (real life German) accent most of the time, and often missed idioms in the early campaign (less so as time goes on). However, when he's in-universe speaking Zemnian to other Zemnian speakers[[note]] or in one case to Jester having cast a Comprehend Languages spell[[/note]] (signified by Liam O'Brien dropping the accent), his syntax and grammar are very advanced.

* Starfire from ''WesternAnimation/{{Teen Titans|2003}}'' speaks in somewhat childish sounding SpockSpeak. This is however due to her lack of a grasp on the English language. Being a high-class alien princess, she speaks eloquently in her native tongue. To add to this, her incarnation in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueVsTeenTitans'' was heavily modeled after her 2003 cartoon version and thus, as a MythologyGag, she's essentially an adult version of her. She has learned to speak English fluently, with only the occasional hiccup. Oddly, Starfire's sister Blackfire speaks perfectly average American-English in ''Teen Titans'', ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'', and ''WebAnimation/DCSuperheroGirls'' despite being newer to Earth than her sister. However, this may be [[JustifiedTrope justified on the how.]] Starfire gained her grasp on English by kissing Robin and given the sultry and flirtacious nature of Blackfire, it's like her greater grasp was the result of her kissing multiple guys beforehand.

** Especially evident with educated people with Soviet (or even Russian) upbringing. Often, having received a solid course in English (or having learned it themselves), they have rarely had an opportunity to practice it with native speakers. So, meeting foreigners for the first time (even non-English speaking, such as Dutch or Finnish or German), they tend to apologize ''profusely'' about their English.

** Also done with native-to-native speakers, when describing or explaining something complicated, commonly the sciences, to another person who does not know what the more "intelligent" one is talking about. The terminology often used in their fields of study would be replaced with simpler words so that the other person won't get lost in the flurry of large and strange words. The journal ''Nature'' has been doing this successfully for over 100 years to explain research science things to scientists in other fields as well as to laypersons.

* Yuzuru Hanyu can explain his skating techniques and artistic choices very eloquently in Japanese, capable of both discussion with professionals and simplification for laypeople. He's nowhere near as eloquent in English, and his struggles with the language have gone memetic in his fandom. He will ask interviewers to "just speak Japanese" if it's an option, and there's video of him looking panicked when a MC informed the audience that "Hanyu will now answer questions in English."

* When Creator/FrancoisTruffaut played Claude Lacombe in ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind'' he was supposed to do some scenes in English, some in French. He went through the scene where he's yelling at the Army general about the "invitees", and Spielberg said that was good but he wanted to re-shoot the scene and this time could Truffaut speak English? It turned out he ''had'' been speaking English.

* ''Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'': A variation. Quasimodo sounds very different when he is speaking with the gargoyles of the tower (who [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane may or may not be really alive or just figments of his imagination]]) than when he is speaking to other adults. When speaking to other humans, he sounds more childlike with a simple vocabulary and a stammer ("NO SOLDIERS! SANCTUARY!"). [[ThrowingOffTheDisability The only time in the film he speaks clearly is in the finale when he stands up to Frollo]].

* David Tom's story, described above in the entry on ''Barney Miller'', is unfortunately not unique. Hungarian soldier [[https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/10/10/andrea-toma/ Andras Toma]] was captured in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII by Soviet troops and put in [[TheGulag a mental institution]] with a lot of German prisoners, where he remained until 2000 because nobody spoke Hungarian or recognized it, and thought he was a mentally ill person speaking gibberish. Russian authorities finally called in a linguist to identify Mr. Toma's speech.

* Mala in ''ComicBook/WonderWomanEarthOne'' speaks English but has a tough time with idioms. When she comes to the U.S. to find the princess, she spends some time in a women's prison. She helps her cellmates escape, and they tell a colleague "She sprang us from the jug and now we're on the lam." Confused, she responds "I neither sprang from jugs nor sat on lambs." The [[Characters/WonderWoman1942 original version]] of Mala does not have this limitation, as it would be catastrophic for her duty as the warden of Reformation Island which imprisons many criminals who speak English.

* When Creator/FrancoisTruffaut played Claude Lacombe in ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind'' he was supposed to do some scenes in English, some in French. He went through the scene where he's yelling at the Army general about the "invitees", and Spielberg said that was good but he wanted to re-shoot the scene and this time could Truffaut speak English? It turned out he ''had'' been speaking English.

* Music/{{Shakira}}'s lyrics, whilst still very clever in English, are often much more complicated and poetic in Spanish due to it being her native language, as well as allowing for different styles of wordplay that don't work when translated. Hence whilst continuing to release albums in both languages, she releases different songs for each market, with only a few translated songs.
* Yuzuru Hanyu can explain his skating techniques and artistic choices very eloquently in Japanese, capable of both discussion with professionals and simplification for laypeople. He's nowhere near as eloquent in English, and his struggles with the language have gone memetic in his fandom. He will ask interviewers to "just speak Japanese" if it's an option, and there's video of him looking panicked when a MC informed the audience that "Hanyu will now answer questions in English."

Except he's not, he's really a rather intelligent chap who simply hasn't learned the local tongue. Were you to hear him in his Native tongue, you'd find him rather [[SpockSpeak insightful]], [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness eloquent]], and [[FloweryElizabethanEnglish poetic]]. Sometimes it's used in conjunction with a phrasebook, where the subject [[MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels uses said book poorly and winds up spitting out nonsense]] or using extremely broken English. Not solely restricted to a foreigner attempting to speak English.

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': In this ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' Franchise/MonsterVerse fanfiction; Ford and Elle Brody apparently have only a very limited command of Japanese, which presents itself when they try to reassure a terrified nurse on Ishigaki in Chapter [[spoiler:18]].

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* Natalya in ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan''. Her attempts to speak English result in statements like the following:
-->"Stay frozen! One small step, and I am executing both your faces!"\\
("What the hell is going on?") "No, hell is not going - it is coming right for us!"\\

[[folder:Film -- Animation]]

[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]

* ''Franchise/StarWars''. Master Yoda. Great Jedi master he is. Lift a starfighter with his mind he can. Speak Galactic Basic well he does not. Apparently, the syntax he uses is 900 years old, so it ends up like this. Given that his first appearance in the film involved messing with Luke's head with a bit of ObfuscatingStupidity, it's quite possible that he's perfectly capable of speaking modern Basic but simply chooses not to, and at least one Expanded Universe novel ran with this interpretation.

* [[TheQuietOne Keenser]] from ''Film/StarTrek2009'' and [[Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness its]] [[Film/StarTrekBeyond sequels]] is this in tie-in material.
* The Swedish Chef of ''Series/TheMuppetShow'' always speaks in a distinctive [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign Fureeegn suoondeeng geebberish]]. In ''Film/MuppetsMostWanted'', when providing a suggestion on the theme of a sequel film, he offers a long string of gibberish which the subtitles translate as, "[[Film/TheSeventhSeal How about a film about the existential conundrum of religious faith?]]"

* Possibly applies to the Librarian from Literature/{{Discworld}}. He's a former human turned into an orangutan after a magical accident. Although very intelligent, all he can say is "Ook". However, he says it with such inflection and expressiveness that those who know him well can understand the (sometimes quite complex) things he says perfectly. As they put it, "We've just got into the habit of understanding him". He's also started work on an Orangutan/Human dictionary. So far he has gotten as far as "Ook".

* Happens at least twice in ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'': Ubergenius Sheldon is incoherent in Mandarin, and Raj claims he would kick Sheldon's ass in an argument if he was speaking his native language. Sheldon points out that English ''is'' Raj's native language.
** Actually three times, since Sheldon learned Mandarin from Howard, who tried using it at their regular Chinese place.
*** Howard seems to overestimate his linguistic abilities. When he tells Penny she’s a ‘very beautiful girl’, his pronunciation leaves much to be desired, and the gang’s waiter at the Chinese restaurant referred to Howard as ‘the guy who thinks he speaks Mandarin’.

* Played with on ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia''. Throughout the series Charlie's illiteracy in his native English is a running gag. When The Gang visits Ireland in season 15, however, he turns out to be proficient at reading and even speaking Irish Gaelic ([[CloudCuckoolander though he believes it's a secret magic language]]) just from years of corresponding with his Irish penpal [[spoiler:and biological father]] Shelley.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. In "Gravity", Tom Paris and Tuvok have crashlanded on a planet and befriend another crash survivor, an alien woman who talks like YouNoTakeCandle because their UniversalTranslator has broken and so she has to learn their language the hard way. Her English improves a lot after Voyager rescues them and she can use the UT herself.
* Omnipresent among the Chinese characters in ''Series/Warrior2019''. Its translation convention is that when the Chinese characters are speaking among themselves in Chinese, the actors all just speak American-accented English -- fluently, colloquially, and occasionally even poetically. When white people are present, the actors speak subtitled Chinese to one another, and broken or heavily accented English to the whites. The exceptions are protagonist Ah Sahm and his sister Mai Ling, both of whom speak flawless English but with an InUniverse explanation that their American grandfather taught them English as kids.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* In ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'', Leo "Toggle" De Luca is a veteran who lost an eye and suffered [[http://www.npr.org/series/127402851/brain-wars-how-the-military-is-failing-its-wounded traumatic brain injury]] while serving in Iraq. His evacuation and therapy are illustrated in great detail. [[https://web.archive.org/web/20080218005621/http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,161971,00.html Trudeau really did his homework for this story]]. Toggle is left with expressive aphasia. His mind still works perfectly but his speech is halting and broken. [[http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2010/05/02 Although he can be pretty articulate when he's pissed off.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]

* In ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'', [[spoiler:Machi]] can speak English, but not very articulately, and for most of the trial, relies on [[spoiler:Lamiroir]] to translate. Even then, [[spoiler:Lamiroir admits she isn't that articulate in English herself than she seems, which causes a problem when she testifies that she witnessed Case 3's murder through a "small window", which led the court to chase a literal small window at the crime scene which was closed and soundproof despite her testimony relying on what she heard. Apollo realises that she was in the ''air ducts'' above the crime scene for her show's disappearing trick, where the air vent can be interpreted as a "small window"]].

* Inverted in ''Webcomic/JupiterMen''. Arrio is a partly-Hispanic high schooler who is specifically flunking Spanish, much to Quintin's disbelief. He says he has to go to "trabago" (he means "trabajo", as in "work") and has to be corrected on it. This proves a detriment when he learns that all the spells and instructions in his SpellBook are written in Spanish.

* Suzi from ''Literature/TalesOfMU'' talks like a WebOriginal/{{lolcats}} caption when trying to speak Pax, but she's a bit more eloquent in her native Yokano:
-->I do not see why we are forced to converse in the barbarous idiom of the coarse westerners even among ourselves. Why must we suffer the indignity of mangling our mouths with their disharmonious syllables simply because they have never taken the time to learn a proper language?
** Oh, and when we say she talks like a lolcats caption, we're [[ShoutOut completely serious]]. Examples include "I can has cheeseburger?" and "I made you a cookie, but I eated it."
* French [[Website/ChannelAwesome That Guy With the Glasses]] reviewer WebVideo/{{Benzaie}} speaks pretty good English overall, but his thick accent ("Waddafuk? Dees ees boo-sheet!") is amusing enough that [[https://archive.org/details/blip.tv-nostalgia-chick-channel-awesome-does-benzaie-5128325 an entire video]] consists of his fellow reviewers affectionately mocking it. However, he has also done some serious videos in which he interviews French game developers in his native tongue. If you are used to his slightly mangled English, hearing him speak perfectly naturally can be a little jarring.

* LetsPlay/{{Robbaz}} has a rather odd Swedish accent, difficulty with certain English words (mostly consisting of words starting in 'J' or 'G', such as "yenius" "yumbo yet" and a few other more complex multi-syllable words) and tends to play up a rather [[LargeHam exaggerated persona]] of a psychotic cannibal Viking. But he's also a professional chef in his day job, and has a talent for engineering, which he proves in games like ''VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram''.
* Caleb from ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'' speaks pretty simple Common with a Zemnian (real life German) accent most of the time, and often missed idioms in the early campaign (less so as time goes on). However, when he's in-universe speaking Zemnian to other Zemnian speakers[[note]] or in one case to Jester having cast a Comprehend Languages spell[[/note]] (signified by Liam O'Brien dropping the accent), his syntax and grammar are very advanced.

*** Especially evident with educated people with Soviet (or even Russian) upbringing. Often, having received a solid course in English (or having learned it themselves), they have rarely had an opportunity to practice it with native speakers. So, meeting foreigners for the first time (even non-English speaking, such as Dutch or Finnish or German), they tend to apologize ''profusely'' about their English.

*** Also done with native-to-native speakers, when describing or explaining something complicated, commonly the sciences, to another person who does not know what the more "intelligent" one is talking about. The terminology often used in their fields of study would be replaced with simpler words so that the other person won't get lost in the flurry of large and strange words. The journal ''Nature'' has been doing this successfully for over 100 years to explain research science things to scientists in other fields as well as to laypersons.

* There used to be a common saying used by Ashkenazi Israelis when speaking Hebrew back when Yiddish was more popular: ‘It’s funny in Yiddish.’ Nowadays it’s usually, ‘It’s funny / it rhymes in Russian.’

* Yuzuru Hanyu can explain his skating techniques and artistic choices very eloquently in Japanese, capable of both discussion with professionals and simplification for laypeople. He's nowhere near as eloquent in English, and his struggles with the language have gone memetic in his fandom. He will ask interviewers to "just speak Japanese" if it's an option, and there's video of him looking panicked when a MC informed the audience that "Hanyu will now answer questions in English".

* Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger ran into this trope while filming ''Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982''. As anyone who has read his autobiography can attest, he's actually a genius, but couldn't speak English well enough for the producers' liking, which is why Conan got hit with a case of AdaptationalDumbass.

* ''Series/{{MADtv|1995}}'' had Ms. Swan, a ModernMinstrelsy Korean woman whose CatchPhrase was "[[ShapedLikeItself He look like a man]]!" One skit fell into this, as the audience was given insight into her ''thoughts'', which gave an incredibly detailed description of the person... before she blurted out her catch-phrase instead.

* Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger ran into this trope while filming ''Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982''. As anyone who has read his autobiography can atest, he's actually a genius, but couldn't speak English well enough for the producers' liking, which is why Conan got hit with a case of AdaptationalDumbass.

* Simon from ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'' who seems to only speak broken sushi sales pitches in Japanese yet has rather insightful conversations in Russian. Subverted with the Russian [[TheMafiya Mafiya]] member Vorona; she speaks Japanese fluently, but her tone and syntax come off as being robotic and stilted. It's mentioned that she talks better in Russian, but ''how much better'' is an everyone's guess — she's a pretty strange girl in general.

* Inverted in ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD''. The "Gift of Languages" allows a Devil to speak with anyone by magically appearing to use whatever language a listener knows, and makes the Devil hear anything that's said in their own native tongue. Shortly after being reincarnated, Issei notes that he's had to put more effort into consciously getting his English consistently wrong for the sake of [[{{Muggles}} his teacher]] than he ever did while trying to learn it conventionally.

* ''Creator/RewindGoneNuts'': Shampoo is depicted as speaking very eloquent (indeed, formal-sounding) Chinese, despite her ineptitude with the Japanese language leaving her with her chAracteristic HulkSpeak. She often mentions how much it annoys her that she can't grasp Japanese as easily as her UnwantedSuitor Mousse did, and/or that it bugs her that people think she's dumb because of it.

* [[Literature/TheDresdenFiles Harry Dresden]] is aware of this trope, as well as how horrible his Latin is. So when ''Proven Guilty'' comes around and he has to make an eloquent defense of [[spoiler: Molly Carpenter]] to keep her from being executed for black magic, he manipulates the situation so that he can present his defense in English.

* From a ''Literature/TortallUniverse'' short story, Skysong the dragon is incapable of making human speech due to being just a baby; however, she's incredibly vocal in her natural dragon language when she gets to use it. Considering that she's as intelligent as any human, it annoys her to no end that people consider her a big, stupid lizard. [[spoiler: When finally granted the ability to speak to humans, including her foster parents, she's over the moon.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'', [[spoiler: Machi]] can speak English, but not very articulately, and for most of the trial, relies on [[spoiler:Lamiroir]] to translate. Even then, [[spoiler:Lamiroir admits she isn't that articulate in English herself than she seems, which causes a problem when she testifies that she witnessed Case 3's murder through a "small window", which led the court to chase a literal small window at the crime scene which was closed and soundproof despite her testimony relying on what she heard. Apollo realises that she was in the ''air ducts'' above the crime scene for her show's disappearing trick, where the air vent can be interpreted as a "small window"]].

* In ''Webcomic/DominicDeegan'', Donovan "Little Pink Man in Pink" Deegan is only capable of speaking Orcish in the sense that he seems to have a rather large vocabulary. He just doesn't know what those words mean. When speaking his native Callanian (The "English" of the world) he is the world's most renowned poet and bard. It turns out that [[spoiler: he speaks Orkish perfectly and acts otherwise because [[RuleOfFunny he thinks it's funny.]]]]

-->'''Xan:''' ... Your Gardish is ''terrible.'' We really ''must'' work on this.

* Stitch of ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'' has elements of this, though normally seeming to be a SpeechImpairedAnimal when speaking English. Especially apparent in the movie's conclusion, Jumba even commenting on him making a good argument. A ''single syllable'' good argument. He also seems to be well versed in his native language's curses.

--->'''Natalya:''' <Thank Christ! I sound like a ''retard'' when I try to speak English!> (amusingly the person she is conversing with, 355, is actually ''worse'' in Russian than Natalya is in English).

* Reversed by the ''ComicBook/{{Starman|DCComics}}'' villain Simon Culp. He made a point to learn a very upper-class register of French as overcompensation for the perceived contemptibility of his native Cockney English.
* [[ComicBook/{{Invincible}} Octoboss]] thinks he's one of these. "English am SECOND LANGUAGE, fool!" He is also covered with realistic, sucker-lined tentacles. He would be much more hilarious if he didn't, you know, beat the crap out of people. Kursk, as well.
* [[Characters/MarvelComicsKittyPryde Kitty Pryde]]'s "pet" dragon Lockheed doesn't make statements much more complex than "hmph" and the affirmative "yeh", but it's repeatedly mentioned through many ComicBook/XMen series that he is much more intelligent than any of the humans around, merely physically incapable of pronouncing human words. In fact, he's one of the smartest and most thoughtful members of the ComicBook/PetAvengers.
* Characters/{{Groot}}, badass tree (yes, tree) of the ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', never says anything but "I AM GROOT!" But [[http://i.imgur.com/rtMlvOv.jpg his inflection and tone matter greatly]]. He used to be able to talk normally.
* Played with in an issue of ''[[ComicBook/LoveAndRockets Luba In America]]'' where Venus and Yoshio are at a restaurant and Venus' aunt Fritzi shows up and strikes up a conversation with Venus in Spanish. Yoshio, who doesn't speak Spanish, thinks it sounds beautiful and imagines the two as elegant superhuman beings, but in reality, their conversation is mundane.
* Xavin of the ComicBook/{{Runaways}} often came off like an arrogant, overly masculine jerkass. When called on it, she has insisted that her words would have sounded much less arrogant in her native language.
* Mala in ''ComicBook/WonderWomanEarthOne'' speaks English but has a tough time with idioms. When she comes to the U.S. to find the princess, she spends some time in a women's prison. She helps her cellmates escape, and they tell a colleague "She sprang us from the jug and now we're on the lam." Confused, she responds "I neither sprang from jugs nor sat on lambs." The [[Characters/WonderWoman1942 original version]] of Mala does not have this limitation, as it would be catastrophic for her duty as the warden of Reformation Island which imprisons many criminals who speak English.
* In ''ComicBook/SupermanSmashesTheKlan'', Mrs. Lee struggles to express herself completely in English, but in Cantonese she's far more articulate and passionate in her speech.
* ''ComicBook/{{Maus}}'': Vladek has some trouble with English grammar, but English is also his fifth language (after Yiddish, German, Polish and Hebrew) He is far from stupid, and very eloquent in both Polish and German.

** Inverted with [[{{Omniglot}} Fujiwara]]. She spent so much time speaking foreign languages as a child (due to her mother being a diplomat), her fluency in Japanese started to degrade from disuse. The offical fanbook even lists Japanese Language as her worst subject.
** On the other hand, it's played completely straight with Betsy. She's a skilled debater in her native French (to the point that it's said that she'll one day kill a man with her tongue alone), but she doesn't know any Japanese in her first appearance. When she shows up again about a year later in-universe, she's shown to have a poor grasp on grammar and she mentions to Shirogane how her lack of familiarity with the language is making the preperations for the upcoming Japanese/French party incredibly difficult since she and the other French students keep on messing up the orders for party supplies.

* Reversed by the ''ComicBook/{{Starman}}'' villain Simon Culp. He made a point to learn a very upper-class register of French as overcompensation for the perceived contemptibility of his native Cockney English.

* ComicBook/KittyPryde's "pet" dragon Lockheed doesn't make statements much more complex than "hmph" and the affirmative "yeh", but it's repeatedly mentioned through many ComicBook/XMen series that he is much more intelligent than any of the humans around, merely physically incapable of pronouncing human words. In fact, he's one of the smartest and most thoughtful members of the ComicBook/PetAvengers.
* ComicBook/{{Groot}}, badass tree (yes, tree) of the ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', never says anything but "I AM GROOT!" But [[http://i.imgur.com/rtMlvOv.jpg his inflection and tone matter greatly]]. He used to be able to talk normally.

* ''Series/MadTV'' had Ms. Swan, a ModernMinstrelsy Korean woman whose CatchPhrase was "[[ShapedLikeItself He look like a man]]!" One skit fell into this, as the audience was given insight into her ''thoughts'', which gave an incredibly detailed description of the person... before she blurted out her catch-phrase instead.

* In ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'', Leo "Toggle" De Luca is a veteran who lost an eye and suffered [[http://www.npr.org/series/127402851/brain-wars-how-the-military-is-failing-its-wounded traumatic brain injury]] while serving in Iraq. His evacuation and therapy are illustrated in great detail. [[http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,161971,00.html Trudeau really did his homework for this story]]. Toggle is left with expressive aphasia. His mind still works perfectly but his speech is halting and broken. [[http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2010/05/02 Although he can be pretty articulate when he's pissed off.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'', [[spoiler: Machi]] can speak English, but not very articulately, and for most of the trial, relies on [[spoiler:Lamiroir]] to translate. Even then, [[spoiler:Lamiroir admits she isn't that articulate in English herself than she seems, which causes a problem when she testifies that she witnessed Case 3's murder through a "small window", which led the court to chase a literal small window at the crime scene which was closed and soundproof despite her testimony relying on what she heard. Apollo realises that she was in the ''air ducts'' above the crime scene for her show's disappearing trick, where the air vent can be interpreted as a "small window".]]

* [[http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=6947 Vaelia]] from ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}'' starts the story speaking next to nothing of the drow language, but improves over time and proves to be quite eloquent in her internal monologues and when she gets to speak her native tongue.

* French Website/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses reviewer WebVideo/{{Benzaie}} speaks pretty good English overall, but his thick accent ("Waddafuk? Dees ees boo-sheet!") is amusing enough that [[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thedudette/specials/30839-channel-awesome-does-benzaie an entire video]] consists of his fellow reviewers affectionately mocking it. However, he has also done some serious videos in which he interviews French game developers in his native tongue. If you are used to his slightly mangled English, hearing him speak perfectly naturally can be a little jarring.

* Starfire from ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' speaks in somewhat childish sounding SpockSpeak. This is however due to her lack of a grasp on the English language. Being a high-class alien princess, she speaks eloquently in her native tongue. To add to this, her incarnation in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueVsTeenTitans'' was heavily modeled after her 2003 cartoon version and thus, as a MythologyGag, she's essentially an adult version of her. She has learned to speak English fluently, with only the occasional hiccup. Oddly, Starfire's sister Blackfire speaks perfectly average American-English in ''Teen Titans'', ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'', and ''WebAnimation/DCSuperheroGirls'' despite being newer to Earth than her sister. However, this may be [[JustifiedTrope justified on the how.]] Starfire gained her grasp on English by kissing Robin and given the sultry and flirtacious nature of Blackfire, it's like her greater grasp was the result of her kissing multiple guys beforehand.

* This explains many presidents of Ukraine, who especially if they are from the East or grew up in Soviet times, speak bad Ukrainian and typically just conduct everything in Russian.