Mark Twain Quotes

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

I study hard at Russian, which is a tough but most attractive language.

I can't learn Swedish to save my life. I tried, but I'm not very good at it.

It's important to me to work in my own language now and then. I love English, but you can never learn to master a foreign language if you're not brought up with it.

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

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

It's really difficult for me. Language, I am sorry that I haven't. I think I just always expected that you learn a word in place of a word and when I discovered how difficult the grammar was and learning that was very discouraging for me.

Learning German will be always kind of hard to me. But I'm getting the basics right.

I'd love to master another language properly.

Learning the Italian was tough. I tried to really come at from a purist perspective, really learn the grammar, syntax and conjugations.

Remember that, however patient your study, you will never in adult life learn any language perfectly; the best you can hope for is to be a bore.

I have been challenged with the fictional languages I have to learn. I wasn't terrible at languages at school - I got an A in French, so I did well enough - but I didn't enjoy them. I'm not even sure if that plays into how well you learn a fictional language!

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

I don't speak Spanish, and I get so much crap for it. Oddly enough, it was the first language I learned, but somehow I lost it throughout the years. I can understand pieces of it, but I don't speak it. I need to speak it. I want to teach my kids Spanish.

I had the luck that my parents educated me in three languages. With my mother I spoke Dutch, with my father Italian, and in the school I learned German. But my host language is Italian.

I would love to learn other languages, maybe French? My uncle speaks German so maybe also German? Chinese seems to be too difficult.

I have never been particularly good with languages. Despite a dozen years of Hebrew school and a lifetime of praying in the language, I'm ashamed to admit that I still can't read an Israeli newspaper. Besides English, the only language I speak with any degree of fluency is Spanish.

I've never lived in an English-speaking country, ever, but I lived in Austria. So, my second language is German. And when I went to school, I had a lot of classes in English.

Over 90 percent of parents in Puerto Rico want their children to be totally fluent in English.

My father's really fluent in French, but I can't speak at all. I actually took it twice in school already and failed both times!

When I was in Mexico and started to dream in Spanish, I knew that was a good sign that I was learning the language. It was cool.

All Italians speak Spanish without studying.

Increasingly, over the past ten years, I've come to take the view that a cultural perspective is intrinsic to the future of language teaching and learning, especially in the case of English, as it becomes increasingly global.

I want to speak seventeen languages. When you think like that, you'll be consumed by failure. I'm haunted daily by what I don't know.

I think that learning Burmese has to have been one of the most challenging things that I have had to do for a movie.