Language Barriers Quotes

The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European but an Asiatic and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinaman or a Japanese and, from what I’ve seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other amiable characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and is an all out son of a bitch, a barbarian, and a chronic drunk.

As to other foreigners it is thought better to discourage their settling together in large masses, wherein, as in our German settlements, they preserve for a long time their own languages, habits, and principles of government, and that they should distribute themselves sparsely among the natives for quicker amalgamation.

I don't speak Spanish, and I get so much crap for it. Oddly enough, it was the first language I learned, but somehow I lost it throughout the years. I can understand pieces of it, but I don't speak it. I need to speak it. I want to teach my kids Spanish.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

In English, my name means hope. In Spanish, it means too many letters. It means sadness. It means waiting. It is like the number nine, a muddy color.

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.

We inhabit a language rather than a country.

To have another language is to possess a second soul.

Regardless of whether you speak the language or are familiar with a culture, the picture should hold up.

There is no Americano dream. There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican-Americans will share in that dream and in that society only if they dream in English.

In the old days, immigrants entered France and blended in. They adopted the French language and traditions. Whereas now entire communities set themselves up within France, governed by their own codes and traditions.

The business is so international now; you'll be working on an American film, and you'll start chatting to someone, and it's like: 'Oh, you're English, too.'

It was such a culture shock for me, being plucked from this diverse neighborhood in London into Jamaica Queens. I'm in this new environment, and I had an English accent.

The two ethnic groups that remain fundamentally different from the Han Chinese - in terms of history, culture, language, religion and physical appearance - are the Uighurs and Tibetans. In these two groups, the Han Chinese come face to face with difference.

To be a foreigner may be an advantage but disadvantage as well. It was advantage for me for sure.

I'd say it's even harder to cater to Hispanics than to the lesbian or gay community. We're so culturally separated: Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Venezuelans. We're all so different.

It's just about feelings. And the thing is we - everybody lives exactly the same things. We are all humans, even if you speak Spanish or whatever you speak. That's just - we are humans, and that's really interesting. And I'm sure that we can understand each other even if you don't understand my language.

I've published a couple of short novels in France that I didn't want to publish in English because I loved the characters too much to subject them to American critics who were not exactly favorable toward my work.

I thought that subtitles are boring because they're there generally to serve us with information to make you understand what people are saying in a different language.

Move beyond the educated elite, and the great majority in most countries outside Europe don't speak English.

When we were in Beijing, they were all "it's an honor, you're playing at the oldest rock club in Beijing". And I was all "oh crazy how old is it?" And then were all: "5 years old."Asia is just very different.

I'm one of those people that feels that Americans that shouldn't do Shakespeare... The rhythms of the English language and the mannerisms of the English speech seems to work effortlessly with William Shakespeare, but when Americans do it, something seems stuck.

For one thing, my English isn't fantastic, and communicating in the dressing room is not always easy.

My family comes from Panama, and I grew up in a single parent household with my mother, who barely spoke English. She couldn't get a good job, yet there were four of us for her to raise.

Bilingual education doesn’t work, and it has never worked.