Barry Jenkins Quotes

I wanted to write for all children, even those kids who might see language as a threatening thing, even if English is their second language.

Only in North America is it regarded as a major achievement to speak one language moderately well.

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.

Man is multiplied by the number of languages he possesses and speaks.

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.

It is a conscious decision that I do films in different languages.

To have another language is to possess a second soul.

I grew up, as many Indians do, in an archipelago of tongues. My maternal grandfather, who was a surgeon in the city of Madras, was fluent in at least four languages and used each of them daily.

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

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

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

When you grow up in a family of languages, you develop a kind of casual fluency, so that languages, though differently colored, all seem transparent to experience.

You only have to look at London, where almost half of all primary school children speak English as a second language, to see the challenges we now face as a country. This isn't fair to anyone: how can people build relationships with their neighbours if they can't even speak the same language?

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.

A lot of people who live in Denmark will understand Danish but not necessarily speak it.

I want to be open to the kids who only speak Spanish, the kids who speak only Spanglish, and the kids who don't even speak Spanish at all.

The places I come from have such rich languages, such a variety of expression. In Sierra Leone we have about fifteen languages and three dialects. I grew up speaking about seven of them.

I speak African. I can even speak Italian.

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

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

I speak French, German, English, and Dutch, and I can say a few words in Spanish - none of these languages have anything to do with Valyrian.

I would love to be bilingual. I think having a second or third language at my bidding would open up the world in amazing ways.

My opinion is that more languages you speak, better it is, but when you come to America, you speak English.

I can manage in six languages - Marathi and Gujarati, in addition to Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi and Bangla.

My mother is half Malayali and half Tamilian. I can speak Bengali and Tamil, but can't read or write.