Best Foreign Language Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

Source: I Fell in Love With Hope

“Sina jinsi. Nguzo ya maisha yangu ni historia ya maisha yangu. Historia ya maisha yangu ni urithi wa watu waliojifunza kusema hapana kwa ndiyo nyingi – waliojitolea vitu vingi katika maisha yao kunifikisha hapa nilipo leo – walionifundisha falsafa ya kushindwa si hiari. Siri ya mafanikio yangu ni kujitahidi kwa kadiri ya uwezo wangu wote; au 'pushing the envelope' kwa lugha ya kigeni.”

“The joy of knowing a foreign language is inexpressible. I find it really difficult to express such joy in my mother tongue.”

Joy Language Understanding Knowing Learning Know Foreigners Foreign Language Language Learning Languages Mother Tongue Express Language Barrier Foreign Language Understanding Inexpressible Mother Language Learn Language

Author:Munia Khan

“My mother can hold her own where foreign words are involved. The simple duo-syllable 'croissant' comes out variously as 'craw-sank', 'crass-ant', or 'crah-sint', the word seeming to have no business being in her mouth and getting spat out as quickly as possible like a bad oyster.”

Mother Language Parents Mothers Foreign Language Languages And Culture Language Barrier Pronunciation Language Understanding Mispronounce

Book:O Brother

Source: O Brother

“I'd studied Latin for five years now, which meant that I could, on rare occasions, actually translate something.”

High School Latin Foreign Language Vigilante Poets Ap Ap Latin

Author:Kate Hattemer

“Whenever I'm in the company of strangers and speak in a way that reveals my Slav accent, the question follows: "Where are you from?" I always reply politely. It's very important to me that I say exactly where I'm from, and explain where that place is in case the person I'm talking to has never hears of my country ("in Europe, near Italy"). I suppose that's the need in me to feel accepted for what I am.”

Foreign Language Otherness The Other Accent Foreigner Slavic Peoples

Book:My Heart

Source: My Heart

“When someone recommends a book to you, you know two things; that it is a good book and you have a good friend. If you listen to everybody, you will be nobody. Judge a man by what he tried, not by what he accomplished. People hate what they know but fear what they don't. A curious mind is never bored. Parents, teachers, and politicians should not be judged by their popularity. People believe in everything except the reality.”

Korean Foreign Language Language Learning Language Acquisition Korean Writers

Author:Min Kim

“Facing a language you don't know is like returning to your infancy when your mother tongue used to be a foreign language to you”

Language Learning Return Learn Infant Infancy Foreign Language Language Learning Mother Tongue Facing Challenges Language Barrier Foreign Returning Language Understanding Mothertongue

Author:Munia Khan

“Few people realize that the Bible discourages people from studying foreign languages. They story of the tower of Babel informs us that there is one humanity (God's one), only that "our languages are confused." That has always meant that, say, any German philosopher could know exactly what the Chinese people were thinking, only that he couldn't understand them. So instead of learning the foreign language, he demanded a translation.”

Foreign Language Tower Of Babel Translation Theory

Author:Thorsten J. Pattberg

“Āryāvalo kitesvaro bodhisattvo gambhīrām prajñāpāra mitācaryām caramāno... That was close!! I almost opened my hands!”

Game Foreign Language Mental Gymnastics Which Hand

Book:日常 6

Source: 日常 6

“Spanish—how shall I say this?—is like Portuguese spoken with a speech impediment.”

Humor Funny Language Comedy Speech Witty Wit Spanish Brazil Foreign Language Speech Impediment Brazilian Porguguese

Book:Snooze: A Story of Awakening

Source: Snooze: A Story of Awakening

“Das Problem mit Fremdsprachen [...], wenn man sie nicht zumindest stiefmuttersprachlich beherrschte, war, dass man immer nur sagt, was man sagen kann, und nicht, was man sagen will. Die Differenz ist das Niemandsland zwischen den Grenzen der Welt.”

Language Foreign Language Sprache Fremdsprache

Book:Die Hauptstadt

Source: Die Hauptstadt

“Screw technicolor, red, and foreign languages. I dream in status updates.”

Dreams Dreaming Foreign Language Status Updates Technicolor

Author:Fierce Dolan

“Tu seras toujours mon ami. Tu auras envie de rire avec moi.”

Friendship Laughter French Children S Books Foreign Language

Book:The Little Prince

Source: The Little Prince

“French is a foreign language, but I've been speaking it since I was 18 so it's second nature to me.”

Language Foreign Language

Author:Kristin Scott Thomas

“I wanted to learn a few foreign languages, and therefore I had to go abroad.”

Wanted Literature Language Travel Foreign Language

Author:Ella Maillart

“When I [first] went to university, I was doing foreign languages, because I had done them since I was 13 years old. I had done French and German. I picked up Italian, just sort of blasted through the exams, [and then] took off overseas, because I wanted to be an actor. I thought, "I'm just not academic." I'm not very competitive, in terms of acting. But since going back to university, I've realized, I am highly competitive.”

Years Firsts Done Wanted Actors Language Term Acting University Italian Academic Exam Foreign Language

Author:Nick Offerman

“Learn Languages the Right Way. Language acquisition games and abstract communicative method are bullshit. The second-best way to learn a foreign language is alone in a room doing skull-numbing rote memorization of vocabulary, grammar, key phrases, and colloquialisms. The best way is in bed.”

“I've had the privilege of learning foreign languages. Instead of merely speaking a watered-down form of my mother tongue, like most people, I'm also helpless in two or three other languages.”

People Two Form Mother Three Language Privilege Tongue Helpless Foreign Language Mother Tongue

Book:Smilla's Sense of Snow: A Novel

Source: Smilla's Sense of Snow: A Novel

“I put myself in the student's place and remember the frustrations, doubts, determination, and desires I felt when I was going through the initial learning process. The things we now do automatically, such as perspective, pencil control, values and composition were as unfamiliar and intimidating as a foreign language.”

“A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language.”

Men Language Ignorant Foreign Language

Book:Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art

Source: Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art

“I will not allow my daughters to learn foreign languages because one tongue is sufficient for a woman.”

Language Daughter Tongue Sufficient My Daughter Foreign Language Ignorance Is Bliss

Author:John Milton

“Beautiful books are always written in a sort of foreign language.”

Book Beautiful Language Written Foreign Language Beautiful Books

Author:Marcel Proust

“Learning a foreign language, and the culture that goes with it, is one of the most useful things we can do to broaden the empathy and imaginative sympathy and cultural outlook of children.”

Children Culture Language Can Do Empathy Sympathy Outlook Imaginative Foreign Language Useful Things Culture And Language Language Culture Foreign Culture

Author:Michael Gove

“The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”

Source: WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

“I speak the truth but I guess that's a foreign language to ya'll!”

Speak Language Speak The Truth Foreign Language I Speak The Truth

Author:Lil Wayne

“I am a bohemian person. I don't speak German, and I live in a foreign country where all the signs are in German. I did that deliberately. I'm like a ghost. Look at how much media and advertising you're subjected to, this mindless chatter of advertising. I just block it out so effortlessly because it's all a foreign language to me. It's really a good thing for my head, living in Berlin.”

Looks Persons Country Speak Language Media Good Things Ghost Block Advertising Berlin Mindless Chatter Foreign Language Foreign Countries Bohemian

Author:Anton Newcombe

“People over the age of thirty were born before the digital revolution really started. We've learned to use digital technology-laptops, cameras, personal digital assistants, the Internet-as adults, and it has been something like learning a foreign language. Most of us are okay, and some are even expert. We do e-mails and PowerPoint, surf the Internet, and feel we're at the cutting edge. But compared to most people under thirty and certainly under twenty, we are fumbling amateurs. People of that age were born after the digital revolution began. They learned to speak digital as a mother tongue.”

“I think that great programming is not all that dissimilar to great art. Once you start thinking in concepts of programming it makes you a better person...as does learning a foreign language, as does learning math, as does learning how to read.”

Thinking Persons Doe Art Language Concepts Math Programming Great Art Better Person Foreign Language Learning Math

Author:Jack Dorsey

“The things you leave school knowing - some dates and long division - so much of it has been of no use to me. Schools should teach the basics of cookery, first aid, how to look after your money and how to speak foreign languages. Useful things.”

Should Firsts Looks Long Has Beens Use School Speak Language Teach Knowing Aids Division Basics Foreign Language Cookery Useful Things

Author:Jane Asher

“When translating one must proceed up to the intranslatable; only then one becomes aware of the foreign nation and the foreign tongue.”

Language Nations Tongue Translate Foreign Language

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If you don't know foreign languages, you don't know anything about your own.”

Ifs Knows Language Foreign Language

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“When I was quite young I fondly imagined that all foreign languages were codes for English. I thought that "hat," say, was the real and actual name of the thing, but that people in other countries, who obstinately persisted in speaking the code of their forefathers, might use the word "ibu," say, to designate not merely the concept hat, but the English word "hat." I knew only one foreign word, "oui," and since it had three letters as did the word for which it was a code, it seemed, touchingly enough, to confirm my theory.”

People Real Country Enough Use Might Young Three Names Language Childhood Theory Concepts Letters Code Hats Other Countries Forefathers Foreign Language Might Use English Words

Book:PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK

Source: PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK

“Learning to say prayers in a foreign language...is not in itself the way to fulfill our highest human potential; there is nothing of transcending value to be gained from substituting one set of cultural conventions for another. People whose practice remains on this superficial level end up with nothing but confusion, not knowing who they are or what they should do.”

“One of the things I like about my job is that it draws on the entire person: not just your knowledge of grammar and punctuation and usage and foreign languages and literature but also your experience of travel, gardening, shipping, singing, plumbing, Catholicism, midwesternism, mozzarella, the A train, New Jersey. And in turn it feeds you more experience.”

Source: Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen

“It's fun when the writers start writing jokes to you, but also it's fun when the writers will come to you and say 'Hey, listen, we're working on this story and we need to know if you speak any foreign languages.' And I said 'No, I don't. I speak a little Spanish, but I can learn a foreign language.' And they go 'Okay, do you think you can learn Portuguese?' And I go 'Yeah, whatever it takes. If it's funny, I'll do it.' So of course I start looking online and learning Portuguese, and as it turns out, I get the script and it's now Serbian.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Needs Writing Littles Said I Can Stories Turns Courses Speak Language Fun Jokes Okay Yeah Scripts Hey Online Whatever It Takes Foreign Language Portuguese

Author:David Alan Basche

“Americans don't speak foreign languages, by and large. Their interest in anything beyond the borders of the country is limited. A European of any cultivation has to speak a couple of languages; he inevitably without being very thoughtful about it gets to understand what other people think about him.”

People Thinking Country Speak Language Interest Couple Borders Thoughtful Cultivation Foreign Language Very Thoughtful

Author:Arthur Miller

“No one would starve in independent India. Its grain would not be exported. Cloth would not be imported by it. Its leaders would not use a foreign language and finding justice in it would be neither costly nor difficult.”

Use Motivational Would Be Language Difficult Justice Leader Findings India Independent Grain Foreign Language

Author:Vallabhbhai Patel

“I had an unusually large-sized head, though this was not uncommon for a baby in the Midwest. The craniums in our part of the country were designed to leave a little extra room for the brain to grow in case one day we found ourselves exposed to something we didn't understand, like a foreign language, or a salad.”

Littles Country Found Language Grows Rooms Brain Cases Baby One Day Extras Exposed Salad Uncommon Foreign Language Midwest

Author:Michael Moore

“I really, really wanted to write. I loved language. I loved literature. I loved reading. I never read a foreign language, I'm afraid, but I loved Flaubert. I loved the 19th-century classics. I love Thomas Hardy. I wanted to be a goof on a bus, but I wanted to write more.”

Writing Wanted Reading Literature Language Century Bus 19th Century Hardy Foreign Language Goofs

Author:Robert Stone

“Imagine, there is almost no possibility for a foreign language film to be distributed in America right now. That doesn't just make the industry poorer, it makes the landscape of cinema poorer, in America. The impossibility to get a good release on a really good European, Latin American, Asian movie is a tragedy.”

America Film Language Imagine Possibility Industry Right Now Tragedy Release Landscape Cinema Latin Impossibility Asian Latin America Foreign Language Latin American

Author:Guillermo del Toro

“Little children can learn anything, just as they can learn a foreign language. The mind is so absorbent then. There ought to be a real program to educate teachers who want to teach grade school children about history.”

Want Mind Children Littles Real School Language Teach Teacher Ought Program Grades Educate Foreign Language Grades In School

Author:David McCullough

“Independent India's leaders will neither use a foreign language nor rule from a remote place.”

Use Language Leader India Independent Foreign Language Remote Places

Author:Vallabhbhai Patel

“Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.”

“I'm not a collector. I don't keep letters, or books, or souvenirs. But I do keep one copy of each translation of my books into a foreign language. Have you ever seen a murder story printed in Singhalese? Wow!”

Book Stories Language Letters Murder Copies Wow Translations Printed Collectors Foreign Language Souvenirs

Author:Rex Stout

“Modern man is educated to understand foreign languages and misunderstand foreigners.”

Men Language Modern Educated Foreigners Modern Man Foreign Language

Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton

“The foreign-language Oscar is something that doesn't go to the producer or the director; it goes to the country.”

Country Language Directors Producers Oscars Foreign Language

Author:Deniz Gamze Erguven

“When I was about 17, I didn't speak. English was like a foreign language. I'd just grunt. The only time I talked was when I said my lines on set. I didn't speak to any of the actors or anything. Then one day Alison from the Corrie press office started talking to me in the green room and I just decided to talk back. She ran upstairs to tell everyone that she'd just had a 10-minute conversation with me like it was the most unbelievable thing in the world. I just woke up one day and thought, 'I'm going to talk today'. I've really made up for lost time since.”

“I think it's very hard to direct foreign language actors, but Carl Rinsch found a great way. A special super visional way.”

Thinking Way Hard Actors Found Language Special Direct Foreign Language

Author:Hiroyuki Sanada

“If you look at the Oscars and look at the Best Foreign Language series, you see that the films are coming from everywhere - from Quebec, Israel, Poland, and Belgium. It's not the usual French, German, etc. This category is opening up to socially engaged and political films. I think we're going to see a cross over to the main categories also. It's part of this global environment now and I'm grateful that the Academy is having this window on world cinema.”

Foreign Language Quotes

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Foreign Language Quotes