History Main / SwitchToEnglish

* Another example of a business that switched to English as its official business language is UsefulNotes/{{Nokia}}. It started holding its board meetings in English even before recruiting its first non-Finnish board member in 1992, and adopted English for all corporate purposes in 1995.

* Former Israeli Prime Minister UsefulNotes/BenjaminNetanyahu, ''[[SurprisinglyGoodEnglish very]]'' fluent in English thanks to spending much of his teenage and young adult years in the US, regularly held staff meetings in English instead of Hebrew. During meetings between him and his eventual successor Naftali Bennett in 2021 regarding the formation of a new government, the two men [[https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/why-it-matters-that-netanyahu-and-bennett-met-in-english-664820 used only English]].[[note]]As for Bennett, he might be ''even more'' fluent than Bibi; though born and mostly raised in Israel, his parents were immigrants from the San Francisco Bay Area, and the family spoke English at home.[[/note]]

* Former Israeli Prime Minister UsefulNotes/BenjaminNetanyahu, ''[[SurprisinglyGoodEnglish very]]'' fluent in English thanks to spending much of his teenage and young adult years in the US, regularly held staff meetings in English instead of Hebrew. During meetings between him and his eventual successor Naftali Bennett in 2021 regarding the formation of a new government, the two men [[https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/why-it-matters-that-netanyahu-and-bennett-met-in-english-664820 used only English]].[[note]]As for Bennett, he might be ''even more'' fluent than Bibi; though born and mostly raised in Israel, his parents were immigrants from the San Francisco Bay Area, and spoke English at home.[[/note]]

* In Taiwan, medical education uses English terminology, so the Legislature had to pass a law saying Taiwanese doctors had to take a course in medical terms in Chinese and Taiwanese, because they couldn't explain their diagnosis to the vast majority of their patients who didn't understand medical English.

* ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'':
** Colonel Hans Landa is speaking to a dairy farmer in French, and he suggests that they switch to English because it is better than his French. [[spoiler:The real reason is that the Jews that the farmer is hiding do not speak English, and Landa doesn't want to alert them to his suspicions too soon.]]
** Also happens later with Lieutenant Archie Hicox, whose German is flawless (although his strange accent arouses suspicion among German soldiers and an SS officer), after he is discovered as a spy.

* Japanese-American O-Ren Ishii in ''[[Film/KillBill Kill Bill, Vol. 1]]'' precedes a speech to Yakuza members by explaining in Japanese why she's about to switch to English. "So you all will know the seriousness of my warning, I shall say this in English." We hear her NumberTwo translate it to Japanese, though.

[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/KiwiBlitz https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/papi_9.png]]]]

Characters begin speaking in a language that is not English [[note]]more accurately "the language with which the intended audience would be most familiar", but "English" is easier to write and read; for example, in anime, this trope would involve a switch to [[UsefulNotes/JapaneseLanguage Japanese]][[/note]], but find an excuse to switch to English so that the audience doesn't have to read too many of those pesky subtitles.

* In ''Film/TheHuntForRedOctober'', when Jack Ryan, Burt Mancuso, and Jonesy first come aboard the titular Russian submarine, Jack breaks the ice by asking for a cigarette (until this point he's said, "I don't smoke" every time an American offered him one), but does so with a gesture as if he didn't know any Russian. Naturally, he starts getting sick. The Russians notice this and start laughing. When Captain Ramius sees that Mancuso has a pistol, he makes a comment in Russian about it, and Ryan starts to chuckle.

A common reason given to justify two non-native speakers speaking English to each other is that they do so in order to "practice". Conversely, sometimes Alice and Bob might discover that they are both from an English-speaking country and don't need to speak the vernacular of where they are in when speaking to each other. Maybe Alice will suggest to switch to English because she knows it better than the current language of the conversation, or maybe [[HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier they are somewhere where few people know English and they don't want to be overheard]], or so on and so forth. [[TropesAreNotGood If this is done poorly]], it can be jarring and seem forced, especially if the characters really have no good reason to switch.

A common reason given to justify two non-native speakers speaking English to each other is that they do so in order to "practice". Conversely, sometimes Alice and Bob might discover that they are both from an English-speaking country and don't need to speak the vernacular of where they are in when speaking to each other. Maybe Alice will suggest to switch to English because she knows it better than the current language of the conversation, or maybe they are somewhere where few people know English and they don't want to be overheard, or so on and so forth. [[TropesAreNotGood If this is done poorly]], it can be jarring and seem forced, especially if the characters really have no good reason to switch.

In addition, some non-English productions, such as Nordic cop shows, may feature this when two characters who can't speak each other's native language decide to both switch to English, which they can both speak - for example, Aliona can't speak Russian, Boris can't speak Italian, but they both can speak English; probably because they learned it at school.

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "The Curse of Fenric", a group of Russian soldiers are on a secret mission in England. The first scene has them speaking Russian with subtitles, then their leader says "From now on, we speak only English", and they do.

Keep in mind that some examples of TranslationConvention [[SquarePegRoundTrope can be mistaken for this]]. This trope only applies if there is a reason ''in universe'' for the characters to be speaking in a language the audience can understand instead of the characters' own. This does not apply to situations where the characters speak English for the convenience of the audience, but are understood to be actually speaking another language. Also compare CompletelyUnnecessaryTranslator, which is about a character speaking to someone through a translator only to reveal that he actually speaks their language perfectly fluently.

* ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare 2'': "No Russian."

* The Korean release of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaFourSwordsAdventures'' includes the elusive Navi Trackers mode. Although the rest of the game is in Korean, Navi Trackers is entirely in Japanese. In effect, the game itself "switches to Japanese".

* In ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', two Vortigaunts are speaking to each other in their native language, but when they notice Gordon Freeman is listening in nearby, they apologize for their rudeness and switch to English. They state that they will speak in English, ''unless they wish to say unkind things about you''. [[CrowningMomentOfFunny All of their dialogue is still in their native language after this.]]