Elif Safak Quotes

I like to travel, and I would love to be fluent in at least four languages.

I've always been inspired by people who can speak other languages.

In English, I'm a little bit limited. I speak English as a second language, and that's a little limitation that I have to work around and I have to use it to my favor. So, yes, that's why I end up wanting to do more things in Latin America.

I speak English without an accent, and I speak Spanish without an accent. I really do have the best of both worlds.

I think it's important if you're American to have a second language, and Spanish is the language to have.

I speak a little Spanish but I am so impressed by people who can speak a lot of different languages.

I feel that as the world becomes more and more multicultural, it's a good tool to be able to speak another language.

I have no idea what it would be like to be just one thing and speak one language. I feel enormously privileged to travel and be able to mingle and speak to people that, had I only known English, I wouldn't have been able to meet.

I speak English, Portuguese, and French. One day I'd love to learn Italian.

I didn't move to Miami to live in a Spanish-speaking province.

Miami is America’s most diverse city… We have 140 languages we speak..

Globalization has brought a proliferation of such environments, so that even monolinguals must increasingly learn to live and act multilingually.

The fact that I did a Tamil film is going to help me a lot in learning Telugu.

I think the thing that allows me to go into so many markets is that I can speak all the languages. Korean, Chinese, English, whatever. Thank you, my parents, for teaching me all the languages.

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

In addition to the research, I enjoyed learning French and assimilating the culture of another country.

I've studied Chinese in college, but basically, I'm not bilingual.

I don't speak Spanish, I speak a little of Italian but no Spanish.

I grew up speaking Spanish and English. My mother can speak Spanish, English, French and Italian, and she's pretty good at faking Portuguese. I wish that I spoke more languages than I do.

I don't speak Filipino or Spanish, but I've sung in both.

Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.

I've never been in any country for more than four years, and I'm learning different languages all the time. It gives you a different attitude.

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

The ability to mingle with so many countries and cultures is extremely valuable for men and women.

My CIA godfather told me he'd never heard any American speak Japanese so well.