Eric Allin Cornell Quotes

In addition to the research, I enjoyed learning French and assimilating the culture of another country.

I first went to Barcelona in 1975 after university, and I stayed for three years. I learnt Catalan because that's what everyone speaks in the mountains. They speak English to foreigners, but what people say to each other is much more important than what they say to you.

It's really difficult for me. Language, I am sorry that I haven't. I think I just always expected that you learn a word in place of a word and when I discovered how difficult the grammar was and learning that was very discouraging for me.

When I was in Mexico and started to dream in Spanish, I knew that was a good sign that I was learning the language. It was cool.

Mum and Dad sent us to a bilingual school, so we had half the lessons in English and half in French. But I remember being hugely lost.

As a child, it was really hard because I'd be thrown into a new school and have to make new friends, or I'd sit in class for months without speaking the language, but as I got older, I welcomed the possibility of discovering new cultures and languages.

I've studied Chinese in college, but basically, I'm not bilingual.

My children speak very good Chinese, and they translate for our American friends.

My primary and secondary education was in French, which had a lasting influence on my life.

After learning the language and culture of the Chinese people, these Jesuits began to establish contacts with the young intellectuals of the country.

I think the biggest difficulty is that when I'm here in America, there's a necessity of using English, so I really have a great sense of really wanting to learn, but unfortunately when I head back to Japan, the necessity vanishes and so does my enthusiasm about learning.

Well, maybe so, although I don't think I am particularly gifted in languages. In fact, oddly enough, it may have something to do with my being slow at languages.

I've never been in any country for more than four years, and I'm learning different languages all the time. It gives you a different attitude.

Welsh is my mother tongue, and my children speak it. If you come and live in this community you'll work out pretty quickly that it's beneficial to learn the language, because if you're going to the pub or a cafe you need to be a part of the local life.

Even though I am very tied to and close to my heritage, I learned Spanish in college; I didn't grow up with it. Growing up in South Texas is different from Miami or L.A. where it is a necessity to speak Spanish.

In my time, you needed to speak a little Italian, and that was it.

I also had this mistaken dream, fantasy really - perhaps because I'm good at languages - of being able in both Italy and France to become someone else through my fluency in the language.

I failed world geography, civics, Spanish and English. And when you fail Spanish and English, they do not consider you bilingual. They may call you bi-ignorant because you can't speak any language.

I unfortunately don't speak French, but my wife is now fluent in English, which really reflects rather badly on me.

My CIA godfather told me he'd never heard any American speak Japanese so well.

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.

It took me a year to really learn the American lingo. I really feel for people who are coming here and don't speak English at all. It must be hell.

I have a one-question language test that people who have lived abroad do better on than those who studied in a classroom. Try my test yourself: In a foreign language you've studied, how do you say 'doorknob'?

I still have an accent. But when I return to Prague, I speak the language yet do not know what they are talking about.

Americans are people who prefer the Continent to their own country, but refuse to learn its languages.