Victor Hugo Quotes

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

When you're speaking Spanish, you're thinking in a different way.

Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.

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.

Many of the books I read, I had to read them in French, English, or Italian, because they hadn't been translated into Spanish.

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.

For the benefit of those who are not bilingual, I will now continue in English.

Writing in another language gives me an additional freedom, an additional way of thinking. It's a challenge, but I like the challenge.

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

A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language.

I can read more languages than I speak! I speak French and Italian - not very well, alas, but I can get by. I read German and Spanish. I can read Latin (I did a lot of Latin at school.) I'm afraid I do not speak any African languages, although I can understand a little bit of the Zulu-related languages, but only a tiny bit.

Bilingualism is a great asset for any individual, but it has perilous consequences for a nation.

One of the nice things about the United States is that, wherever you go, people speak the same language. So native New Yorkers can move to San Francisco, Houston, or Milwaukee and still understand and be understood by everyone they meet. Right? Well, not exactly. Or, as a native New Yorker might put it, 'Wrong!'

I feel it is unnatural and immoral to try to teach science to children in a foreign language They will know facts, but they will miss the spirit.

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.

I must confess... I don't know any tongue but the Nether-Dutch.

It's one thing to be writing in South or Latin America, where, except for Brazil, every country, however small and hard to find on a map, speaks Spanish, but quite another to be writing in, say, Hungary, a landlocked nation of 10 million people, with a language that very few people outside Hungary can read or speak.

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.

I think we are living in an age where we really need to have bilingual leaders so that we can communicate with our constituents.

I think the best part of learning a language is that you can see the country's culture through the language. And it gives you different levels of understanding of that culture when you really try to dig in and learn it.

It is not easy, but young people have to learn languages.

I think once you understand a language, you understand the culture surrounding it as well.

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.

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

I have 16 plays, and we don't ever do subtitles. You can't do subtitles in the theater, so I was like, 'I'm not gonna do subtitles.' You'll never lose the story. There might be a little joke that you might miss, but you'll never miss the story, even in the Spanglish of it.