# Movies where characters learn a foreign language all too quickly **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [June 22, 2026, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107 "2026-06-22T17:49:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2026, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/21 "2026-06-22T19:52:37Z")
The movie is also kind of vague about how long the learning process takes - and the passage of times in general. We really don’t know how long Grace and Rocky are out there together, but it’s months, maybe years. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2026, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/22 "2026-06-22T20:04:19Z")
Not movies particularly, but some people seem to have a ‘gift’ for absorbing languages easily. T E Lawrence was supposedly one on them, though I suspect his ability was exaggerated. I have known one such: the sister of the guy who did our sound engineering when I was playing in a band in London. She acquired a Greek boyfriend and apparently was rapidly able to speak to him in Greek within a few months. The ‘Learning at the pillow’ idea. I can’t do it at all: what little French I have is due to years in school and working in France for a while. I suspect this is a genetic talent, like music or Math (in which I can claim some ability…) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2026, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/23 "2026-06-22T21:14:42Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > The ‘Learning at the pillow’ idea. When I was teaching English in Moscow, a female colleague (Russian) spoke it perfectly with a Scottish accent she’d picked up from her boyfriend. She did it so well she was able to convince prospective hirers (Americans, of course) that she was a native English-speaker. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2026, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/24 "2026-06-22T21:25:41Z")
Germans once told me they could tell I’m not a native speaker, but they would never have guessed I was American. However, that was a long time ago. The ability wanes without practice, and the last time I had a prolonged conversation with a native German-speaker was in the summer of 2005. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/25 "2026-06-23T08:32:03Z")
Nancy Cartwright was always a quick study. She probably taught Bart French in her spare time. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/26 "2026-06-23T11:58:20Z")
“Because I _LEESEN!_” ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/27 "2026-06-23T12:15:32Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I don’t think any of the movies show it, but characters like “Mr Clark” in Tom Clancy’s novels seem to learn foreign languages in record time. Nothing can top “the universal translator” in Star Trek. The universe is a big place, and there are an endless number of languages it has never heard, but no problem! LOL ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/28 "2026-06-23T12:18:20Z")
Yeah, it helps if you can scan alien brains and then supply the correct grammar. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/29 "2026-06-23T12:21:33Z")
Yeah, and that might explain why this past weekend I suddenly had the distinct feeling that someone or something was scanning my brain. I dismissed it as a combination of 3 martinis and paranoia, but now I wonder … 😳 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/30 "2026-06-23T12:31:18Z")
The UT was probably just translating for you. I’ve always been amazed by how it works for both humans and aliens. 😏 ---
**Author:** ![Thumper668](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thumper668/32/20803_2.png) [@Thumper668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thumper668)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/31 "2026-06-23T12:41:26Z")
I went to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey for Russian, and even without total immersion we were conversant within a month. DLI changes strategies and some classes were prohibited from English. Others used pictograms. At one point they tried total immersion even outside of class, but it didn’t get noticeably better results and was much harder to implement because it requires staff personnel that are fluent. On the other hand, DLI also self-selects students with a facility for language learning. Harder languages require higher scores on the Defense Language Aptitude Battery test - it’s in a made-up language loosely based on Esperanto and measures how quickly you pick it up. Russian is a category III language. Category IV is languages like Arabic and Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/32 "2026-06-23T13:00:51Z")
One of my classmates at Middlebury’s Russian School was also studying at DLI between 1988 and '91. She was very young and already a Staff Sergeant in the US Army. My first training in Russian (after my private lessons) was at Concordia College’s Russian Camp (Moorhead, MN). I was learning first-year college-level Russian while still in high school, and the program was intense. I remember sitting down to write a letter home after my first week, and I found it difficult to find the English words and phrasing I needed. Russian was already messing with my brain. ---
**Author:** ![Thumper668](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thumper668/32/20803_2.png) [@Thumper668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thumper668)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/33 "2026-06-23T13:02:56Z")
I just missed her - I graduated from Intermediate in the summer of 88. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/34 "2026-06-23T13:11:22Z")
If you had seen her, you’d remember her. She was tall and thin and had a gorgeous head of thick golden blonde hair. 🥰 ---
**Author:** ![Scoobysnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Scoobysnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scoobysnax)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2026, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/35 "2026-07-06T21:01:12Z")
She was the supreme being. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2026, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/36 "2026-07-06T23:00:24Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Many people for whom English is not their first language claim to have learned it watching TV. This was (and still is?) common on game shows like Bob Barker’s _ **Truth or Consequences** _, which was taped in California. I remember Bob interviewing a lot of contestants who had emigrated to the US from Spanish-speaking countries and elsewhere. Mila Kunis claims she learned English by watching The Price is Right. She doesn’t pretend she didn’t also learn in school but she watched a lot of TV. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2026, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/37 "2026-07-07T01:39:02Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Nothing can top “the universal translator” in Star Trek. There was that one language it didn’t work on. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2026, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/38 "2026-07-07T03:38:31Z")
“Darmok and Jallad in Russian Class…” ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2026, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/39 "2026-07-07T13:44:50Z")
Immersion can work like that IME. I was learning Arabic for The Army, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, in classes where all you heard was Arabic after the first couple weeks. After a couple months I was certain I would be a cook or a light wheel mechanic before the year was out. And then one day…I got it. Something clicked, and fairly suddenly I went from having no ear at all to being up to speed with the rest of my cohort. Freaked me out just a little, actually. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2026, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107/40 "2026-07-07T16:40:52Z")
In the movies based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ _A Princess of Mars_, John Carter learns Marian way too fast. Of course, part of the reason is that it’s a movie – in the book a pretty decent amount of time passes, but in a movie you’ve only got about two hours for everything to happen. Even depicting someone picking up a language , done as a montage or whatever takes up valuable screen time, so people pick up languages fast. Incidentally, people mentioned both _Robinson Crusoe on Mars_ and _Enemy Mine_ . I regard these as practically the same film. Barry Longyear’s story “Enemy Mine” needed a lot of fleshing out to fill th time for a movie, and I always felt that they took a lot from Byron Haskins’ earlier movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-where-characters-learn-a-foreign-language-all-too-quickly/1031107.md?page=3)