George Mikes Quotes

I used to keep a dictionary and work with it and then I realized there are more words that exist in the English language than there are in this dictionary.

Shakespeare's taught me that there are more words in the English language than I have got in my head.

I studied French in high school and German in college and I once took a 24-hour Italian crash course. English has by far the most words in it of any other language. Our money might not be worth anything anymore, but the language is.

Of all the words in all languages I know, the greatest concentration is in the English word I.

I have a small vocabulary, which I move around fast.

I had been learning Italian for years. I always loved Latin, but Italian is a living language; I'm writing in it now as well as reading it. It is so interesting delving further into language.

I speak a number of languages, but none are more beautiful to me than English.

I have a good memory for words, and when I come upon a word I don't know, I remember it, or try to - it's almost like a tic. I also just have a good feeling for how words are made and formed in English and the etymologies that give you prefixes and suffixes.

Podcasts immersed me in colloquial English and put me back in the American zeitgeist.

I really was the nerd in the car that read vocabulary books. If we were going on day trips, I would quite like to have just stayed in the car with my German and French vocab books. It's embarrassing to admit to it now.

Ever since third grade, I had a notebook and was putting together words just for fun. I liked different etymologies, different slang that came out in different eras. Different languages. Different dialects.

I have to admit that I'm not very good with grammar. They taught grammar in elementary and high school, but I went to public schools, so I never really learned it.

I spend a lot of my time just looking at words and grammar and writing things down that I don't know.

In South Africa, we speak English and sometimes Afrikaans, sometimes Zulu, sometimes Xhosa.

I want to speak better English.

I am sure that I have improved in England.

I'm studying Finnish, and it's one of the five most difficult languages in the world. And the more I learn, the more I realize that's definitely true.

I hear what they're saying. I ask my English tutor, 'What is this word 'tinkerer?''

It's rare to find an Indian who speaks Chinese. It's rare to find a Chinese who can speak any of the Indian languages. Neither of them at the trading level - I want to repeat this, at the trading level - can speak English, either.

I feel that I can teach my listener about a new word they can use too.

English? Who needs that? I'm never going to England.

I looked up 'standard' in the dictionary. There are eleven different definitions.

In the secret pocket, she often kept a small pocket dictionary, which she would take out whenever she encountered a word she did not know.

Through my former experiences, writing poetry and learning other languages leading up to English I find ways to stitch words together that may seem a bit odd, but somehow, sometimes they do work.

The Australian language is easier to learn than boat talk. It has a vocabulary of about six words.