Fela Kuti Quotes

Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican.

Each language has its own take on the world. That's why a translation can never be absolutely exact, and therefore, when you enter another language and speak with its speakers, you become a slightly different person; you learn a different sort of world.

I have a funny accent in every language.

Some words, you know, it's amazing but some words would come only in French, and when I speak French, it would only come in English. And so the adjustment is very difficult sometimes.

Everyone knows English is my second language and my vocabulary is not as broad as it is in Spanish, and because of this, sometimes I use the wrong words to express myself.

You don't do classics with a Texas accent.

Enshrined in a language is the whole of a community's history and a large part of its cultural identity. The world is a mosaic of visions. To lose even one piece of this mosaic is a loss for all of us.

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

I did not think I would be able to do myself justice if I had to speak to the players in English. I would not be able to get my emotions and feelings across.

I do rap and speak in Malayalam but only to save my life as my vocabulary in the language is not as good as it is in Hindi.

Though most of my titles are translated into about 7 to 8 languages, I feel that translations, to some extent, can lose the flavour of the colloquial words used otherwise in the regional narrative.

I've often been asked, 'aren't you going to sing in English?' So I'm very glad to have a song in English.

I only know English, so I feel like I can be the dopest French rapper ever if I learned French.

In India, whichever language you write in, the possibility of people not understanding irony or not understanding [remains there]. This as a writer is most terrifying!

Language is so different from life. How am I supposed to fit the one into the other? How can I bring them together?

The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out his message best without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost. He should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience.

Because there'd be two languages I couldn't speak, French and English.

I'm a believer in the benefits of translation. It's a necessity and a privilege - it would be awful to be limited to reading authors who's work was composed in the languages I happen to have learned.

The history of a culture can be determined by its untranslatable words.

Sometimes I want to joke but my English isn't perfect. Sometimes people are wondering what I'm talking about.

Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.

In my creative films, if there was something, some humorous moment that is lost to a non-Korean speaking audience, I'll be very sad.

When you watch the subtitled version you are probably missing just as many things. There is a layer and a nuance you're not going to get. Film crosses so many borders these days. Of course it is going to be distorted.

The Gay News critic wrote that I 'carried the lilt of the Irish without the brogue'.

At a lecture I am asked to pronounce my name three times. I try to be slow and emphatic, "Anaïs - Anaïs - Anaïs. You just say "Anna" and then add "ees," with the accent on the "ees."