Quotes About Bilingualism

I was German-speaking, and I arrived 10 years old to Croatia, and really wasn't speaking a lot at home with my parents in Croatian, so it was really difficult to write in Croatian. It took me two years after I went back to learn everything again in Croatian.

I love commuting between languages just like I love commuting between cultures and cities.

No, I didn't forget Samoan - I understand it when you talk to me but, you know, to put phrases together I sound like I do in English.

My sister and brother and I grew up speaking both languages - French to our father and English to our mother. But when we three kids are talking to each other, we use English.

After all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn't mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It's a dogma which one is supposed to accept without question...

You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.

English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously.

Learning to read in one language helps us read a second language.

The mind of the polyglot is a very particular thing, and scientists are only beginning to look closely at how acquiring a second language influences learning, behavior and the very structure of the brain itself.

I grew up speaking Korean, but my dad spoke English very well. I learned a lot of how to speak English by watching television.

At home I can become lazy and if a Welsh word is really long, I just replace it with English.

A lot of people who live in Denmark will understand Danish but not necessarily speak it.

The Gaelic language itself depends very much on ear and rhythm, and when those who are thinking in Gaelic speak in English, they get the same rhythm.

My mom taught me German before I knew English. And I went to French immersion school.

My biggest regret is that I didn't teach my two children how to speak Spanish.

I definitely want to teach my daughter Spanish.

My mother had been an English teacher in India before she came to the U.K., and she taught me to read early on - not only in English, but in Hindi, too. My teachers didn't like the fact that I was reading more quickly than they were teaching, and as a consequence, I would sometimes get bored in class.

This happens to a lot of kids from different backgrounds - they lose a lot of their parents' and grandparents' teachings, language and culture because they have to deal with another language and culture 24/7. By the time I was 44, I was terrible at Spanish. I was always intimidated whenever I had to speak it.

Rose turned to me. "Did she just speak to him in Spanish?" "Yeah," I said. "She only speaks to him in Spanish, actually. It was in some parenting book she read about kids learning a second language.

this wonder of an Englishman who spoke indifferent but comprehensible Greek.… Before we parted he drew a

It's really sad for me that in the United States the Latino community is losing its culture and language, especially among kids born here - a lot of them can't even speak our language.

Who says I don't know how to speak in English? So what if it has a Punjabi touch?

I was born in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1948 but grew up in a black neighborhood. During elementary and middle school, I commuted to a bilingual school in Chinatown. So I did not confront white American culture until high school.

As my primary language was English, I had to work on my Hindi. I wasn't so comfortable with it.