Ella Maillart Quotes

All the kids are learning different languages. I asked them what languages they wanted to learn, and Shi is learning Khmai, which is a Cambodian language; Pax is focusing on Vietnamese, Mad has taken to German and Russian, Z is speaking French, Vivienne really wanted to learn Arabic, and Knox is learning sign language.

I learned English, French, Italian.

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

Foreign languages are another favourite topic, and as these men are bilingual they have a fair notion of what it means to speak and think in many different idioms.

Growing up in Switzerland, you learn German pretty much from day one in school. You learn French and Italian as well. I took English as an extra language because I figured that was the language of the world.

I learned to say 'hello' in German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Indonesian, and Italian - languages of the countries I've visited.

I've studied Spanish, but I need to improve. I'll probably improve when I work in the country one day. For most people, when they travel to a country, their language becomes better.

I might move to Finland, at least for a while, to learn the language a bit better, 'cause you don't learn any language better than in the country itself.

I tried to learn the languages - Italian, Spanish, and German - not to successfully. Working on a European set isn't a hell of a lot different from working on an American set.

Math and science fields are not the only areas where we see the United States lagging behind. Less than 1 percent of American high school students study the critical foreign languages of Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Russian, combined.

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

Study a foreign language if you have opportunity to do so. You may never be called to a land where that language is spoken, but the study will have given you a better understanding of your own tongue or of another tongue you may be asked to acquire.

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

I'm pretty good with languages. I know a bit of French and actually want to live in France some day so that I can get fluent. I think it'd be tragic to go through life only knowing one language.

I speak as much Spanish as anyone who has grown up in Southern California or Texas or Arizona. I had my three years of high-school Spanish and a couple of semesters in college.

My daughter took Latin for three years; she still can't speak it.

I majored in Chinese. I was never really good at Chinese but I really, really benefited from having been exposed to Asian philosophy early in my life.

It is no secret that the fruits of language study are in no sort of relation to the labour spent on teaching and learning them.

I just started taking Mandarin classes. I love the idea of globalization: of being able to work in different countries.

I have a one-question language test that people who have lived abroad do better on than those who studied in a classroom. Try my test yourself: In a foreign language you've studied, how do you say 'doorknob'?

I speak African. I can even speak Italian.

I could never learn to be totally fluent in any other language.

I might have some Danish lessons sometimes.

Fools, most linguists. Damn all to say in one language, so they learn another and say damn all in that.

Foreign languages was the only thing that interested me when I was at school, so playing in another language... it is quite demanding because if it is not your mother tongue, you are missing some connotations and some emotional depth of certain things.