As you may know, the relevance is the key in SEO these days.
Backlinks in English to English might not be effective if they are not relevant.
The Same strategy should be there too.
You may think about the natural process. Example: Let's say if there is a website (English) which may have very useful info about SEO tips and if there is a blogger and his blog may be in different language talking about SEO and if he may link SEO tips websie, it should be fine. Firstly because this doesn't happen too often so link volume will be very less. And Google may be able to relate.
Now, if you are planning to get backlinks in an unnatural way then forget about other language even English to English may not work.
So, relevance is the key.