Quotes About Bilingualism

To have a second language is to have a second soul, said Charlemagne around 800 AD. Each language has its own cognitive toolkit, said psychologist/linguist Lera Boroditsky in 2010 AD.

Even though many Indians can read or speak English, for most, it is not their first language. At the office, we speak in English, but we consume our culture in our own language.

Adam was charming and spoke perfect French. Like many anglophones in Montréal, he actually spoke French better than we did. They knew exactly which verbs to use in the same way that people knew which utensils to use while eating at a fancy dinner. It was very proper because they learned it from books. They didn't know slang or how to curse. They didn't know how to do anything other than be proper and reserved. It was state-sponsored, dry-clean-only French.

Sometimes I feel I can't quite master my written and spoken Spanish, because I'm too much a student of English. I would need another lifetime to learn it.

I'm just trying the American dream. To work here in the U.S., you have to commit and be here. For many years, it was back and forth, back and forth, and it didn't work. But I'm always open to working in Spanish.

I spent ten years in London; I trained there. But because I started in English, it kind of feels the most natural to me, to act in English, which is a strange thing. My language is Spanish; I grew up in Argentina. I speak to my family in Spanish, but if you were to ask me what language I connect with, it'd be English in some weird way.

My children speak very good Chinese, and they translate for our American friends.

Now I know Hindi, and I can read and write Hindi, but the problem is that I can't improvise when I am acting because I think in English, so I have to translate my thinking from English to Hindi, and therefore, I speak slowly.

I read pretty well in French and Spanish. I don't want to read a book written in French or Spanish in translation.

When you sing in English and Spanish, it's two completely different forms of expression and... even the people who don't speak Spanish love to hear me sing in Spanish.

A pesar de que tiene dos lenguas, el bilingüe habla como si siempre le faltara algo, en permanente estado de necesidad.

Siempre se escribe desde una ausencia: la elección de un idioma automáticamente significa el afantasmamiento del otro pero nunca su desaparición.

Los ejemplos que recuerdo, como se verá, remiten (o re-tornan) a la casa, a la cuchara y a la olla; remiten a lo casero, aunque las lenguas del sujeto bilingüe nunca lo son. La mezcla, el ir y venir, el switching pertenece al dominio de lo unheimliche que es, precisamente, lo que sacude la fundación de la casa.

Quiérase o no, siempre se es bilingüe desde una lengua, aquella en la que uno se aposenta primero, siquiera provisoriamente, aquella en la que uno se reconoce.

En el Caribe cuando alguien habla bien tiene el respeto de la gente y de pequeño yo veía eso y me encantaba. Supongo que como a nosotros nos impusieron ese idioma colonial [el español] la resistencia consistió en eso: "Ok, tengo que aprenderlo, pero lo voy a convertir en oportunidad".

They waited respectfully for him to finish and then they said, their faces slowly disappearing in the gloom, Listen, we'll let you go if you tell us what fuego means in English. Fire, he blurted out, unable to help himself. Oscar--

Most Arab Israelis speak Hebrew, but not the other way around. It's about time that changed.

Italian was my first foreign language. I speak it better than English.

One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.?

I studied in American school, so yes, I grew up speaking English and Spanish. Obviously, Spanish is my first language.

My dad's French, and I spent my summers in France growing up. So I speak French fluently, and obviously, I speak English because I was raised in New York, and I grew up here.

If I'm performing in the United States, I'm able to speak Spanglish, and the crowd comprehends. If I'm in the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico, then I'm completely Spanish. I feel like a New Yorker that represents all Latinos.

I could speak Spanish fluently growing up, but I'm so out of practice, and I have such a tremendous respect for songwriting in the Spanish language.

Writing in English was a major challenge. I didn't want other songwriters to write for me. I wanted to preserve the spirit of my songs in Spanish. I am the same Shakira in English as I am in Spanish.