Language Background Quotes

French was my first language.

My first language is Gaelic.

When I was a child, I grew up speaking French, I mean, in a French public school. So my first contact with literature was in French, and that's the reason why I write in French.

I grew up speaking Spanish. The woman who helped raise me was only Spanish-speaking, so it was one of my primary languages as a kid. And I lived in Spain for a while.

English, for me, is an acquired language. I started with English at the age of 10. At the time, it was my third language.

I had the luck that my parents educated me in three languages. With my mother I spoke Dutch, with my father Italian, and in the school I learned German. But my host language is Italian.

Somebody said to me that I speak English almost like somebody for whom English is not their first language.

I am Afrikaans. It wasn't ever something that I thought about.

Spanish was my first language. Honestly, I learned to first speak in Spanish, not English, because my poor mother had to go to San Diego every day to work and then come back. And she would come home when I was an infant long after I was asleep.

I studied in American school, so yes, I grew up speaking English and Spanish. Obviously, Spanish is my first language.

I learned Spanish at home and, since half my family doesn't speak English, it's my first language.

I'm the kind of person that wants to analyze and I think having a background in, strangely enough, in like literature and languages, I'm always analyzing things.

My parents were both Spanish-speakers and they used to speak to me and my siblings in Spanish and we'd answer them in English.

My dad is a minister and my mum is a worker with the less fortunate and the disabled. They're Nigerian natives. Their first language is Yoruba, and their second language is English. My mum and dad moved to London when they had my eldest sister. They started a life in London as immigrants, and they built up from there. They're no actors in my family, but there are definitely animated black people in my family.

I write in English because I was raised in the States and educated in this language.

I spoke Franglais growing up.

I grew up in an environment of jokes and sarcasm and puns. I talk that way, so I write that way.