How well do pokemon (particularly wild) understand human language? They seem to understand commands – such as attacks – as soon as they’re caught. Would a pokemon from a french speaking region understand a command from an english or spanish speaking trainer?

Although there are a number of people in Johto who claim to be “pokémon speakers,” or those who can speak with pokémon, and although there are a few pokédex entries that imply otherwise, in truth, most pokémon can understand human speech just fine. It’s just that most pokémon—especially wild ones—respond better if a human attempts to speak with them in their “native language.” However, this is just because it’s easier to hold their attention this way; if you attempt to hold any sort of conversation with a pokémon, they should have no problem following what you’re saying.

Of course, things get complicated with languages, but for the most part, this is one of the reasons why we converted to an international language with the establishment of pokémon leagues. The other reason, of course, is because it’s easier for trainers to enter foreign leagues if they didn’t have to deal with a language barrier. This is why it’s easy for a ten-year-old from Japan to enter the Unova League.

For pokémon, meanwhile, it’s less of a chore to translate what humans are saying because we, for the most part, are speaking only one language, and that language was itself constructed from a pokémon tongue. This language, for those who are less well-versed in etymology (I know we don’t normally teach this in school for whatever reason) is Common, which is a language based entirely on the unown. For this reason, pokémon are capable of latching onto what we say because in a way, we are speaking one of their languages—just not their native language. (This is why we can’t exactly understand them unless we make a concerted effort to do so. Johtonian pokémon speakers rely on this fact in order to perform, but all they’re really doing is making more of an effort than most people to listen.)

Of course, it’s entirely possible for a human to speak one of the old languages such as French or Japanese, but this tends to cause more confusion than it’s worth, especially given how interconnected we are as a species at this point.