Quotes About Fluency

Don't you know how, in talking a foreign language, even fluently, one says half the time not what one wants to but what one can?

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, my wife speaks five languages: Russian, English, French, Italian and, out of self-defense, Spanish. I watched her learn Spanish in three months.

I learned how to speak English watching television.

I do not speak Malayalam and am putting strenuous effort in developing command over the language.

I can communicate what I want to in Tamil, but I can't express myself in the language very well.

My English was limited to vacationing and not really engaging with Americans. I knew 'shopping' and 'eating' English - I could say 'blue sweater,' 'creme brulee,' and 'Caesar salad,' - so I came here thinking I spoke English.

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

I might be more fluent in Swedish than I am in Spanish. My wife speaks it to our kids, and they're fluent so I hear it all the time, so I've got that under my belt.

I speak five languages: English, Swedish, French, Italian, and German.

When I have to switch back and forth, it's not hard to go from the American accent to speaking Spanish, but then speaking Spanish and going back into the American accent is hard. I practice it so much. I talk to myself in the mirror all the time. It's like speaking multiple languages.

They all spoke some German, having been living in the German-speaking region of Switzerland. Lenin himself spoke it well. He was a remarkable linguist, Walter learned. He was fluent in French, spoke passable English, and read Aristotle in ancient Greek. Lenin's idea of relaxation was to sit down with a foreign-language dictionary for an hour or two.

Johannes Meintjes… is one of the more articulate South Africans of his generation. A prolific painter, he is also a fluent author in both English and Afrikaans. With unresting curiosity about South African national and regional history, he seems blessedly free from political or racial bias, and when he writes of nations or persons in conflict is alert to what is good or bad on both sides.

The easiest way to do anything is properly.

but a library is a gorgeous language that you will never speak fluently.

Par le passé, j'avais appris l'anglais, le néerlandais, l'allemand et l'italien. Il y avait une constante avec ces langues vivantes : je les comprenais mieux que je ne les parlais. C'était dans l'ordre de la logique : on observe un comportement avant de l'adopter. L'intuition linguistique fonctionne même quand la compétence n'est pas encore atteinte.

It's true that stammerers can become more adept at sentence construction.

Trying to speak correct English is not easy.

I'm Punjabi and speak Punjabi fluently and know all the Indian customs and everything.

A man may lack everything but tact and conviction and still be a forcible speaker; but without these nothing will avail... Fluency, grace, logical order, and the like, are merely the decorative surface of oratory.

I'm not a good talker, I'm a great talker because I do it so often over a long period of time.

Pike rolled down his window and motioned them over. Pike spoke Spanish pretty well, along with French, gutter German, a little Vietnamese, a little Arabic, and enough Swahili to make himself understood to most Bantu speakers.

What offers immediate pleasure comes to seem like a distraction, an empty entertainment to help pass the time. Real pleasure comes from overcoming challenges, feeling confidence in your abilities, gaining fluency in skills, and experiencing the power this brings.

If we keep practicing, we gain fluency; basic skills are mastered, allowing us to take on newer and more exciting challenges.

Real pleasure comes from overcoming challenges, feeling confidence in your abilities, gaining fluency in skills, and experiencing the power this brings. You develop patience. Boredom no longer signals the need for distraction, but rather the need for new challenges to conquer.