Quotes About Bilingualism

I was born in Texas and I lived there 'till I was 8. Then I moved to the Dominican Republic with my mom, lived there for two years and forgot every word of English I knew.

I didn't know at first that there were two languages in Canada.I just thought that there was one way to speak to my father and another to talk to my mother.

If the English educated neglect, as they have done and even now continue, as some do, to be ignorant of their mother tongue, linguistic starvation will abide.

The English was really my mother, it was never me. Being the daughter of my father, I always felt very French.

It's okay to be proud of your good English. But don't be proud of being poor at your Mother tongue. Only the scum of the earth do that.

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

As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions.

My English is not very good-looking.

I learned Spanish at home and, since half my family doesn't speak English, it's my first language.

Estaba condenado con la maldición del que sabe dos idiomas y entiende, secretamente, que no domina del todo ninguno de los dos. Ahora era capaz de comparar; todo se me multiplicaba por dos. En cada sitio terminaba optando por el punto de vista ajeno. Ahora veo todo, esté donde esté, como un extranjero.

I am making sure, as the governor of a territory, that our kids speak fluent English. But having said that, I will tell my wife I love her in Spanish, and I will pray in Spanish, and no one from Washington should come down here and tell us how to go about it.

Being able to incorporate my language into songs is really cool. It's really cool to see that people are susceptible to it. It helps with writing a lot to turn off one language and then go to another.

When I need to get into details, I like French. But when I want to do something stronger, English is better. The swear words are stronger in English. And on the court, 'Allez!' is light. 'Come on!' That's strong.

My Finnish, it never really happened, but I'm good in Swedish.

I speak Swedish mainly with my kids' friends.

I live the Swiss mentality but the Kosovo mentality too, because when I go home, I speak Albanian.

My English is actually getting worse. We talk Spanish at home and switch to English only when we need it. Like when we go to the bank to get some money.

Back home, almost everything I did, I did in Hebrew. I went to drama school in Hebrew, my whole career was in Hebrew, and to switch languages was something that was fascinating and more complicated than I expected it to be, even though I've been speaking English since I could speak.

I use Mandarin, Korean and English on a daily basis and usually only use Cantonese when I'm speaking with my relatives. I don't think it's very difficult for me to switch between each language because I've been doing it for so long.

Carmen's first language is Spanish. I only speak Spanish with her... and with Alec she is smart enough to know that she needs to switch to English.

The only thing that private school did for me was give me this foundation where, if I choose to, I can speak proper English, or I switch to Ebonics, or I can edit myself and not curse.

And if they are lucky enough to be exposed to multiple languages, they will master all of them, as long as the languages are presented in a natural context, such as when dad speaks Spanish and mom speaks English or the live-in nanny speaks French.

Americans suffer from mono-lingual myopia - a disease of the tongue that affects the vision.

I was born here in the States. I moved to Portugal when I was five. And then my parents put me in an English school.