Charlotte Gainsbourg Quotes

Even if I think in English, it's more a language of acting than French.

I grew up speaking Spanish. The woman who helped raise me was only Spanish-speaking, so it was one of my primary languages as a kid. And I lived in Spain for a while.

I do rap and speak in Malayalam but only to save my life as my vocabulary in the language is not as good as it is in Hindi.

Being here in the United States, English is not my first language. It's kind of a challenge for me, a big challenge for my family.

Often when you're an immigrant writing in English, people think it's primarily a commercial choice. But for many of us, it's a choice that rises out of the circumstances of our lives. These are the tools I have at my disposal, based on my experiences. It's a constant debate, not just in my community but in other communities as well. Where do you belong? You're kind of one of us, but you now write in a different language.

We spoke French at home and I didn't know any English until I went to school. My mother was French and met my father when he visited France as a student on a teaching placement.

It's a complicated process being so bilingual. Sometimes it's a mere word or sentence that comes to me, if I'm writing the book in English, in French. It's not always easy to deal with. Sometimes even during an interview somebody can ask me a question in English that I want to answer in French and vice versa - that's the story of my life!

Afrikaans is my first language, although you would never know, as my English accent has more of an American-British thing going on from all my years of travelling.

One of the biggest problems is - you know, I've got some Hispanic friends - is that a lot of those folks that don't know English, is primarily because they don't even know Spanish. They don't even know their own language.

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.

I wish I was not such a very bad hand at languages. That is one thing I cannot do, that and ride.

When I started writing, the first thing that came out was in English. I liked a few French things, but they were very overwhelming.

People who grow up with two or more languages understand that each can express certain aspects of reality better than the other.

I was very nervous about the accent. I was very nervous about being an American.

Everybody at home speaks mandarin except me.

I grew up in a community that was bilingual. I've done it for a while, singing in both languages.

Talking in one language and talking in another, I think inevitably, produce two different personalities, as far as I've seen in other people. I assume it does the same for me.

Languages are the pedigrees of nations.

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

The idea of Homo monolinguis - one-languaged man - the idea of children having to grow into one system before we confuse them with another mental system, is an idea with which, unfortunately, many people are brought up now.

Most of my family doesn't speak English. It's so important for the baby. He's going to know all his American roots, but he also needs to know about his Brazilian side.

It's liberating to perform in another language. There are some subjects I would never talk about in French, where they see me as a public figure, that I talk about in English.

I realize that the wish to write in a new language derives from a kind of desperation.

I went to an English school and was brought up in English. So I don't feel Czech.

Most people, throughout history, haven't learned one language to the exclusion of another. You learn to speak differently to a peasant and to a shoemaker. You speak differently to your mother, who comes from Burgundy, and to your father, who comes from Swabia.