Language Confidence Quotes

Of course you cannot compare my Hindi with a Hindi-speaking person, but I am confident enough to hold a conversation in mixed Hindi-English.

I feel comfortable in Spanish, I chat like a parrot, but I don't have the confidence in Spanish that I do in English.

I think I am less self-assured when I write English than I would be if I were writing in my first language. I have to test each sentence over and over to be sure that it's right, that I haven't introduced some element that isn't English.

I've always thought that speaking a foreign language from a young age makes you a little bolder when it comes to speaking and doing accents and things like that.

I was always, and I still am to a certain extent, one of those lazy people who spends a lot of time with Italian friends and yet constantly says I don't speak Italian. Things slow down when I start speaking Italian.

I'm more relaxed. I know I have difficulties with some verbs. But if they get me, they get me. And if they don't understand me, they don't understand me.

Before 'The Last Samurai,' I couldn't believe I could do that. I didn't think I would be able to explain myself and my feelings in English, in a different language. But I could.

I'm good with accents and stuff; it's mostly that I have a really good Spanish accent, so it sounds like I speak a lot better than I do.

It's difficult to act in a language that's not your own. It takes a long time to put your head around it and feel confident with it.

What I want is for people to really grab hold of language and not be nervous about it. 'The Word Spy' is all about diving in and playing with words.

It is a sore point, because you do have advantages if you have access to more than one language. You also have problems, because on bad days you don't trust yourself, either in your first or your second language, and so you feel like a complete halfwit.

You know, I was a kid who had difficulty speaking English when I first immigrated. But in my head, when I read a book, I spoke English perfectly. No one could correct my Spanish. And I think that I retreated to books as a way, you know, to be, like, masterful in a language that was really difficult for me for many years.

My French definitely improves the more I drink, as I worry less and less about absolutely perfect grammar. I do speak and understand the language, just not particularly well.

I'm not too bad at reading, but I've got a bit of a confidence problem with speaking, with going from Scouse to Spanish.

I don't know Bengali perfectly. I don't know how to write it or even read it. I have an accent, I speak without authority, and so I've always perceived a disjunction between it and me. As a result, I consider my mother tongue, paradoxically, a foreign language.

Bejoy Nambiar had offered me 'Shaitaan' some years ago. But I wasn't confident about my Hindi.

I was worried people would laugh at me when I started to talk the language, but they were just pleasantly surprised that I could. The sense of humour here is great - once I could have a giggle, I settled down.

So, rather than becoming multicultural, rather than becoming a person of several languages, rather than becoming confident in your knowledge of the world, you become just the opposite. You end up in college having to apologize for the fact that you no longer speak your native language.

I want to speak English perfectly. In fact, I want to speak English just like I fight, and, until that moment, I find it very hard to do an interview solely in English.

I understand Scouse - I think!

By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don't hesitate.