Alek Wek Quotes

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.

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?'

It's fascinating when you're from another place, but you don't speak the language.

When I first came to this country, I didn't know how to speak English.

I didn't speak English until I came to Pittsburgh.

I moved to Oklahoma to learn English when I was 16 years old from Colombia for six months; then I moved to New York.

The fact that I didn't speak English I think was the most difficult thing for me.

When I first arrived in the country, I really didn't speak much of the language. I knew two words coming here, and they were 'Hello' and 'Shut up.'

Moving to France is not the hard part. Living here is more difficult. Of course there are many benefits but it's not always easy especially if you don't speak the language.

When I came here I moved to London and I was meeting so many new people and had to speak only in English, which is not my native language.

The first 10 years of my life, I lived as 'Matangi.' When I came to England in '86, my first week of school was terrible because I would put my hand up to answer things, and no one would choose me because they couldn't say my name. My auntie came from Europe to visit us, and she was like, 'Just call yourself something else.'

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.

I understand English; I read and write English perfectly, but the accent won't go away.

I lived in England to learn English. When I went to England for the first time, it was like being on the Moon. I had no friends, I couldn't speak the language. I was very isolated.

It is an agreeable and yet a painful sense of novelty to stand for the first time in the midst of a people whose language and manners are different from one's own.

I remember learning new words, trying to figure out what common things like cider, finding myself upset that my parents couldn't help me understand this new culture, that it was up to me to interpret for them as well as myself.

When I first came over to the States, I started writing, I think, as a way to help myself learn English. I would start stapling together little booklets for myself.

I was born in Texas and I lived there 'till I was 8. Then I moved to the Dominican Republic with my mom, lived there for two years and forgot every word of English I knew.

I remember reading 'The Grapes of Wrath' in high school in 1983. My family had immigrated to the U.S. three years before, and I had spent the better part of the first two years learning English. John Steinbeck's book was the first book I read in English where I had an 'Aha!' moment, namely in the famed turtle chapter.

When I first came to this country I could not speak English. Now I get paid to write it.

When I was in fifth grade - so, about 11 - my folks moved us to Denmark. And so not only did I have all new friends and all new surroundings, I didn't even understand what they were talking about, which was very difficult and kind of started me, I think, on my path to animation.

Here in South Korea, I'm continuing to learn English in order to boost my prospects. When North Korean defectors try to get a job to stabilize their lives, their lack of English is a handicap. It was the same story while I was living in China. It took an enormous amount of time and enthusiasm to learn Chinese.

When I went to school, I didn't know a lick of English, but it was okay because there were so many immigrants in the area, a lot of the kids didn't speak a lick of English, either. It was normal to have a wicked accent.

When I arrived in the U.S., I knew little English and didn't have any friends. The neighborhood and school kids were so welcoming. They made me feel at home very quickly.

My mom had been a script supervisor in Hungary, but you can't just jump into that in Canada without knowing any English. She worked retail jobs and raised my sister and me while learning English.