Language Interference Quotes

In truth, factual information - names or dates - have never interested me much. Those things are like an alien language that can interfere with the language of the painting, or even prevent its emergence.

I use Mandarin, Korean and English on a daily basis and usually only use Cantonese when I'm speaking with my relatives. I don't think it's very difficult for me to switch between each language because I've been doing it for so long.

I can speak English, Portuguese, and a bit of Spanish, or Sportugal. It's a mix of Portuguese and Spanish. I understand French and Italian, but I can't speak them.

When all those city folks try to fix up my talking, all they do is mess me up.

I think words come between the spectator and the picture.

A conversation in English in Finnish and in French can not be held at the same time nor with indifference ever or after a time.

Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.

I'm not a xenophobe - I think immigration is a good thing for most countries - but they transmute the foibles of their native tongues into English in a way that's difficult to figure out.

Serial tasking is hard because switching tasks is hard, even when the tasks are easy and similar. In some experiments, bilingual speakers are asked to read out numbers, first in one language and then midway in another language. They often stumble at the switch, taking many tries before they hit their stride again.

It's a complicated process being so bilingual. Sometimes it's a mere word or sentence that comes to me, if I'm writing the book in English, in French. It's not always easy to deal with. Sometimes even during an interview somebody can ask me a question in English that I want to answer in French and vice versa - that's the story of my life!

We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

I speak English. I dream in it. I cannot separate my English from my Shona; I see the world with those two languages.

My English is actually getting worse. We talk Spanish at home and switch to English only when we need it. Like when we go to the bank to get some money.

It requires a strong mind to bear up against several languages. Some persons have learnt so many, that they have ceased to think in any one.

Everyone tells me I have a funny accent. It's because I copy people. I learned English at school but have best friends who are French, Australian, English and American; a very weird mix.

I have only so many foreign-language neurons. When I learned Spanish, that displaced whatever Irish was left, and then I learned German, and that displaced the Spanish, and when I learned Serbo-Croatian, that displaced the German. So I'm a bit of a muddle.

I speak French, and I grew up with French, so my English is Franglais.

Afrikaans is my first language, although you would never know, as my English accent has more of an American-British thing going on from all my years of travelling.