Language Learning Quotes

“I'd hoped the language might come on its own, the way it comes to babies, but people don't talk to foreigners the way they talk to babies. They don't hypnotize you with bright objects and repeat the same words over and over, handing out little treats when you finally say "potty" or "wawa." It got to the point where I'd see a baby in the bakery or grocery store and instinctively ball up my fists, jealous over how easy he had it. I wanted to lie in a French crib and start from scratch, learning the language from the ground floor up. I wanted to be a baby, but instead, I was an adult who talked like one, a spooky man-child demanding more than his fair share of attention.

Rather than admit defeat, I decided to change my goals. I told myself that I'd never really cared about learning the language. My main priority was to get the house in shape. The verbs would come in due time, but until then I needed a comfortable place to hide. ”
― David Sedaris

“Oh child, your language is so utterly simple and limited that it has the affect of extreme complication.
-Aunt Beast”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

“Each time a language dies, another flame goes out, another sound goes silent.”
― Ariel Sabar, My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq

“...Orm always afterwards used to say that, after good luck, strength, and skill at arms, nothing was so useful to a man who found himself among foreigners as the ability to learn a language.”
― Frans G. Bengtsson, The Long Ships

“When you learn a language, you don't just learn to speak and write a new language. You also learn to be open-minded, liberal, tolerant, kind and considerate towards all mankind.”
― Mouloud Benzadi

“HOSTESS. Oh, nonsense! She speaks English perfectly.
NEPOMMUCK. Too perfectly. Can you shew me any English woman who speaks English as it should be spoken? Only foreigners who have been taught to speak it speak it well.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

“He agreed that I should buy another dictionary or, better yet, a phrase book with standard Spanish expressions. He also suggested that it would be a good idea if I learned to stammer, because people would get bored listening to me and would finish the sentence for me; this way my accent wouldn't be noticed.”
― Henri Charrière, Papillon

“Languages aren't just made of words. They're modes of looking at the world. They're keys to civilizations. And that's knowledge worth killing for”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“But that's the beauty of learning a new language. It should feel like an enormous undertaking. It ought to intimidate you. It makes you appreciate the complexity of the ones you know already.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Your languages determine how interesting you are.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“One small step towards a language is one giant leap towards inclusion.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans

“I continue to admit that Italian is not my language, that it's an adopted language I love and use without possession. But I also ask myself: Who possesses a language, and why? Is it a question of lineage? Mastery? Use? Affect? Attachment? What does it mean, in the end, to belong to a language?”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, Translating Myself and Others

“A language is not meant to be imprisoned in grammars and dictionaries, it is meant for the lungs and the tongue.”
― Pep Talk Radio, LinguaVerse: A Journey through Language Realms

“If you wanna know about a culture, you can read about it in any language - but if you want to experience that culture like your own, you gotta do it as one of their own - through their own native language.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science

“The value of Greek prose composition, he said, was not that it gave one any particular facility in the language that could not be gained as easily by other methods but that if done properly, off the top of one's head, it taught one to think in Greek. One's thoughts became different, he said, when forced into the confines of a rigid and unfamiliar tongue. Certain common ideas become inexpressible; other, previously undreamt-of ones spring to life, finding miraculous new articulation.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Languages are like beings:
they thrive, take a dive,
and need care to survive.”
― Mouloud Benzadi

“In Norwegian sentences, the verb is always the second piece of information you get. This is the most important rule in Norwegian sentence structure. So, if nothing else sticks in your mind, remember this!”
― Werner Skalla, The Mystery of Nils - Part 1: Norwegian Course for Beginners. Learn Norwegian. Enjoy the Story.

“The question has led to a realization: that while the desire to learn a new language is considered admirable, even virtuous, when it comes to writing in a new language, everything changes. Some perceive this desire as a transgression, a betrayal, a deviation.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, Translating Myself and Others

“The receptionist was a petite Asian woman of forty who spoke English so precisely that Tuck knew it had to be her second language.”
― Christopher Moore, Island of the Sequined Love Nun

“Understanding the language is a quintessential part of understanding the culture.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science

“Wambach's concerns raised questions about the impact that deaf signers could have on Project Nim, and perhaps inadvertently about how Terrace's study might compare with the work done by the Gardners in Nevada, who had expressly designed their experiments to include deaf signers. Simply having Falitz sign at the weekly meetings and interpret for Wambach in the discussions brought a new dimension to their work. Wambach was not particularly critical of Terrace, who was older and far more established than she, but she wanted the staff to have a better understanding of the world of deaf speakers—those who used ASL because they needed a language.
Thanks to Wambach, the chimp project began attracting deaf volunteers (including one who is remembered for having love and hate tattooed on his knuckles), who formed a small subculture within Terrace's staff. In an attempt to bridge these two worlds, one night the deaf volunteers arranged to plug up the ears of the hearing staff and take them out to a restaurant for dinner. They were instructed to communicate exclusively in ASL from the moment the plugs were placed in their ears on the way to the restaurant, during the meal, and all the way back to Delafield. The hearing group found the experience to be a terrible struggle. But what made an indelible impression on Johnson was the way that everybody in the restaurant spoke really slowly and loudly to them, treating them as if they were all mentally incapacitated.”
― Elizabeth Hess, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human

“Over time, I have come to believe that if language learning is anything, it is the always-bruised but ever-renewing desire to draw close: to a person, a territory, a culture, an idea, an indefinable feeling.”
― Polly Barton, Fifty Sounds

“For many years, before ASL was recognized as a language in its own right, Deaf people described using sign language as "the way we communicate at home." (Page 81)”
― Diane P. Chambers, Communicating in Sign: Creative Ways to Learn American Sign Language (ASL)

“Even though English is the universal language of earth, due to its primitive colonial escapades, and indeed the most convenient, it is neither the most beautiful nor the most soulful language on earth.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Bulletproof Backbone: Injustice Not Allowed on My Watch

“The proper psychological approach for a cultural rapprochement between the East and the West is not to force ‘English’ education on Indian boys when they
are young, but to bring them into close personal contact with the West when they are developed, so that they can judge for themselves what is good and what is bad in the East and in the West.”
― Subhas Chandra Bose, An Indian Pilgrim

“In a world where words are often mere amusement, it is imperative to forge a new dictionary that enlightens the masses on the true worth of spoken words. For those who underestimate its power, fail to realize the energy they emit and the consequences they yield. What we give with our words, we receive - a universal balance that demands understanding and respect.”
― Yvonne Padmos

“Broken polyglots are potent polyglots.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Language is the rich fabric that enshrouds all experience that is truly human. Those who are hyperpolyglots therefore adorn multiple layers of beautiful fabrics at the same time. They have multiple lives in one sense; and they certainly have multiple souls.”
― Usman W. Chohan, HYPIA at One: HYPIA Annual Report 2017

“Languages are but echoes of each other, Based on the environment each feels unique. No language is superior, no language is inferior, All are born of human mind to meet at heart's peak.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect

“I don't do drugs, languages are my LSD.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Abigitano: El Divino Refugiado