Avoiding the Aliens Speak English Trope

I have two alien 'scientist'-type explores who come in contact with a human. They traveled through electromagnetic waves so they resemble human related products (dress, bodies, eyes, etc.). But how would they communicate with the human?

I don't want them to be completely mute but at the same time I don't want them to be all "Hello y'all!" Anyways, having serious writer's block with getting aliens to communicate...any non-cliché loopholes?

Well, don't forget the tropes are not bad.

Learn. If they have to, and they want to then arranging a language lessons with the residents humans shouldn't be much trouble. In the meantimes they could communicate with what words are easy to pick up ("Yes" "No" "Food" "Sonovabitch") while gesturing to get other points across.

Why would you expect gestures to be any easier to understand?

Personally, I'd handwave something about Translator Microbes. You could always have mistranslations of ambiguous words become a plot point later.

if they are aliens who are under a humanoid translator convention, gestures might actually work. (these aliens seem like the ones from Galaxy Quest, technology-wise). It might be interesting to start out with gestures.

While spoken language must be learned and passed down, physical gestures are much more universal. A glare will be intimidating and unwelcome regardless of if they know English or not. Though, these are aliens so even these ques that are so obvious to most humans may not be to them.

As scientists, they likely have come up with similar practices as us to study new things; they would first observe the situation and environment without interfering, learn about it and record the information they know, before taking any further action. It's kind of rare for some reason (well, in my limited perusing experience) for aliens to come down and then actually learn out languages the old-fashioned way for a couple years.

Not just gestures, but also other ways they may attempt to initially communicate may be pictures, visuals, sound, etc.. The clever can be quite inventive when it's necessary.

I doubt this would be terribly helpful, but my own alien species were peculiar symbiotes that could attach and inhabit other creatures, which also had the effect of learning the ways and knowledge of their host. A happy shortcut I found, though it wasn't necessary for m in particular. Animorphs had something very similar, with the parasitic aliens called Yeerks that took over people's bodies and could control them and see in their minds.

<3 ali

But the Animorphs also had a universal translator.

As far as aliens being able to understand gestures. Consider how well the average human is able to understand the gestures of say, a prarie dog. Then consider that they aren't even alien - they evolved on the same planet as us, using the same basic biological structures.

Better yet, a chimpanzee, and we've only been separate for a few million years.

Have them learn French.

Treat them like just like they were humans yet speaking a foreign language. It's not too alien, but certainly will provide enough of a problem to overcome.

How alien did you want them to be? I was a bit confused by the "they travelled by electromagnetic wave" thing.

Not very alien -> human style gestures, usage of simple technology like beeps or sounds (morse code style), or even just a non-english language

Somewhat more alien -> communication via electromagnetic radiation (such as low power radio waves), subtle vibrations, colour changes on their body, pheromones, smell, taste, (I even read a story where the aliens communicated by having sex and their ejaculate contained information that is processed by their brains, which doubled as their sexual organs. And no it was not porn.)

I did basically what Gvzbgul was suggesting for my alien race, the syth. After their home planet when kaboom (via a Multiple-Choice Past event) one portion ended up on good ol' present-day/recent past alternate Earth. Which, of course meant you had two species making first contact with each other, both being about the same tech level, both being carbon-based warm-blooded sexually reproducing bipedial creatures with the same senses and a audial form of communication... so basically extreme case of culture shock, but from the get go, communication was possible, through similar body languages and reactions, tones of voice, etc.

Even though things like gestures, the spoken word, symbols, and such took longer to figure out, there can still be a large number of signals and messages that are shared, and those are the most basic aspects of communications: go this way, I'm angry, don't do that, I mean you no harm, slow down, I'm hungry.... these can be picked up within minutes. After that, two sentient beings may start developing a shared code, and you just spiral it out from there!

Of course, it becomes easier as those involved come to understand the other race's language, symbols, gestures, customs, and all, but for the start, just work on forming a baseline of communication. For example, in my story, humans learned fairly quickly that syth slightly unfolding their wings was a defencive reaction, making themselves appear larger to those who are confronting them, while syth realized that humans sweat a lot when they've just gotten a shot of adrenaline (it's far more difficult writing human autonomic responses then it is to write alien ones, because so much of what we think of as instinctual actions are actually cultural or personality-based)

I averted (subverted?) this trope by making aliens and humans live alongside one another after first contact and having it not so much be "aliens instantly speak English" as "aliens can learn English just as easily as a native, say, Chinese speaker can"