Carlos Ruiz Zafon Quotes

I can speak Cantonese, but I can't speak about fashion - I learnt all my fashion in Europe, so often, during interviews in Chinese I just don't know the right word - it can be very hard to explain things.

When I was a kid, I resented my grandparents not speaking the perfect English I wanted to speak.

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.

My wife has a horror the children will start talking American if we spend too much time out there.

I loved France, although I initially thought they were stubborn for always speaking French.

When I moved to Bombay, it was very harsh. I was nothing like what I am today. I couldn't speak a word of English. In England, people might be very understanding about that, but in Bombay, they're not very forgiving. 'If you don't speak English, how do you expect to work in Hindi films?'

I had to struggle with the language. I can understand Hindi now, but I still can't communicate. And things get lost in translation; I feel rejected all the time.

The situation was kind of complicated in that my mother didn't speak Spanish. My father spoke English, you know, as best he could.

I have some English words on the first album, but any time I try to do it, you miss something. You think it's just a simple translation from French to English, but it's so different as far as the understanding.

While I was doing Hindi, people there laughed at me because I couldn't speak Hindi and English properly.

I am used to being places where I don't speak the language. What I am not used to is being in a part of a country where few people speak my language. Call it ignorance, arrogance, or what have you, but most places I have visited, I was lucky enough to be able to get by with English.

I have three championships in a country where I don't speak the language.

People in Italy seem to be very capable of singing along with 'Wish You Were Here' perfectly, yet it's hard to get someone in the street who speaks english.

When I came to Korea for the first time, I couldn't understand the language.

Somebody should tell the president of Mexico that when he appears on American television, he should speak English.

Translating from one language to another, unless it is from Greek and Latin, the queens of all languages, is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, for although the figures are visible, they are covered by threads that obscure them, and cannot be seen with the smoothness and color of the right side.

I don't speak ... I operate a machine called language. It creaks and groans, but is mine own.

It's always a unique challenge when you're working with somebody where English is their second language.

Which natural gift would you most like to possess? The ability to master other languages (which would have hugely enhanced the scope of these answers). How would you like to die? Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting (or fooling around). What do you most dislike about your appearance? The way in which it makes former admirers search for neutral words.

I tried to learn the languages - Italian, Spanish, and German - not to successfully. Working on a European set isn't a hell of a lot different from working on an American set.

I could speak to you and say, 'Laytay-chai, paisey, paisey.' ... Why aren't you responding? Oh, you don't speak Swahili. Well, I've got news for you. The dog doesn't speak English, or American, or Spanish, or French.

I have a funny relationship to language. When I came to California when I was three I spoke Urdu fluently and I didn't speak a word of English. Within a few months I lost all my Urdu and spoke only English and then I learned Urdu all over again when I was nine. Urdu is my first language but it's not as good as my English and it's sort of become my third language. English is my best language but was the second language I learned.

No instance exists of a person's writing two language perfectly. That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth.

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.

A smattering of English is worse than useless; it is an unnecessary tax on our women.