The Big Bang Theory spent 12 seasons bragging about getting things right.
Physicist David Saltzberg checked every whiteboard equation before cameras rolled, and the show leaned on that reputation every time someone questioned its science.
So when The Big Bang Theory Season 10 Episode 22 finally gave Sheldon Cooper a line of Hindi to deliver, I got excited.
(Monty Brinton/CBS)
Finally, I thought, a language moment in my mother tongue for the one character who fusses over every syllable of every language.
Then I actually heard it.
I am a native Hindi speaker, and I could not make out a single word Sheldon said, not one of them.
I ended up pausing the episode and downloading subtitles for a scene that was supposedly already in a language I have spoken my entire life.
So how does a show this obsessed with precision let one sentence in an actual living language slip through this badly?
(Michael Yarish/Warner Bros.)
Nine years later, I am still thinking about it. It still gets to me that Kunal Nayyar was standing in the same room the whole time, and nobody thought to ask him to fix it.
The Cognition Regeneration Was Supposed to Be About Sheldon’s Brain, Not Mine
The Big Bang Theory Season 10 Episode 22 (“The Cognition Regeneration”) revolves around Sheldon panicking and believing that his brain is slipping.
He loses a video game to a bunch of Little Leaguers, decides he is no longer a wunderkind, and sets out to prove his mind still works.
(Michael Yarish/Warner Bros.)
Raj suggests he learn Hindi as a real mental challenge, exactly the kind of moment we expect this show to nail after years of chalkboard equations checked by an actual physicist.
Sheldon’s response is that he already learned it, back when he was eight. He proves it by saying, “Jab mein aat saal ka tha maine seekha tha,” which translates to “I did that when I was eight.“
On paper, it is a solid joke, one more example of Sheldon flexing a skill nobody asked him to have. But in reality? The line is nearly unintelligible.
So how does a nine-word sentence go this wrong on a show that fact-checks black holes?
The rhythm is off, the vowels stretch in places they should be clipped, and the whole thing sounded like Sheldon was having a stroke rather than him actually speaking.
I know this because I tried three separate times before giving up and reaching for subtitles for my own native language, on a network sitcom.
Sheldon had already pulled off a similar language stunt years earlier, learning Finnish well enough that the fans from Finland lauded him for his pronunciation.
So the show already knew exactly how to make a language bit work when it wanted to.
The irony gets thicker once you notice what Raj says in the very same scene.
He claims he never learned Hindi at all, despite having spoken it fluently in earlier episodes like “The Vengeance Formulation” and “The Psychic Vortex.”
The Big Bang Theory flubbed the one line delivered by the non-Hindi-speaking lead and rewrote the actual Hindi speaker’s backstory in the same breath.
Kunal Nayyar Was Standing Right There the Whole Time
The frustrating part is that this was avoidable.
Kunal Nayyar was born in London in 1981 to Indian Punjabi parents, and his family moved back to New Delhi when he was three.
(Michael Yarish/Warner Bros.)
He grew up there, went to St. Columba’s School, and stayed until he left for college in the United States at 18.
Years later, he took his first Hindi-language acting role in a 2014 film called Punha, proof that the language was never a stretch for him.
He even wrote a memoir called “Yes, My Accent Is Real,” defending his own authenticity as an Indian actor in Hollywood.
It says a lot that the show had that guy on set and still let Sheldon’s fake-sounding line go to air. Why not just ask him?
He was on set, in the scene, and somehow nobody on a show that ran every equation past a real physicist thought to run one sentence of dialogue past the one guy in the cast who actually spoke the language.
(CBS/WBEI/Michael Yarish)
I keep thinking about Howard in comparison, and I do not mean that kindly toward the writers.
Howard was an engineer, a fact the show brought up constantly as a running joke about him being the only non-doctorate member of the group.
Even he probably could have nailed a single rehearsed sentence better than what made it to air, and that, too, would be in character.
So when Sheldon supposedly picked up a new gig as a theatre actor in the Magic Realm version of events on Stuart Fails to Save the Universe Season 1 Episode 3, it was a reminder of that horrendous scene of TBBT.
Magic Realm Alexa says he is starring in a revival of Man of La Mancha in that universe, a wink at Jim Parsons’ own theatre background.
(Courtesy of HBO Max)
Bill Prady and Chuck Lorre have since confirmed Jim Parsons will not actually appear on the spinoff, so there is no real performance to judge, improved or otherwise.
Maybe that is fitting, since it’s evident that some things just refuse to get fixed, even nine years and an entire multiverse later.
So that’s my throwback The Big Bang Theory frustration, and I know I’m not the only one who has experienced something like this, so I’m turning it over to you!
Was there a scene in a show that got your language wrong enough to pull you right out of it?
Drop it in the comments; I want to know I am not the only one still thinking about this nine years later. And if you like digging into the details other recaps skip past, go ahead and subscribe.
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Nine years after the scene aired, I still can’t get over why Sheldon’s Hindi was so bad, and why nobody asked Kunal Nayyar to fix it.
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Big news from the world of The Big Bang Theory! According to a new report from Deadline, the upcoming untitled TBBT spinoff has added three beloved cast members from the original series. Kevin Sussman, Lauren Lapkus, and Brian Posehn will all make their returns to the Big Bang-iverse in a sequel series that’s otherwise shrouded…
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