Best language & foreign-language Quotes

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

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