Speak English Quotes - Page 5

• I speak English, obviously, Afrikaans, which is a derivative of Dutch that we have in South Africa. And then I speak African languages. So I speak Zulu. I speak Xhosa. I speak Tswana. And I speak Tsonga. And like - so those are my languages of the core. And then I don't claim German, but I can have a conversation in it. So I'm trying to make that officially my seventh language. And then, hopefully, I can learn Spanish.

  Trevor Noah

  Trying, Dutch, Derivatives

  Source: www.npr.org

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• What you desire, as an actor, is to have an impact. That's why you did it. You want to move people, and you want to resonate with your audience. It's always a great compliment to have people appreciate and speak of the characters. I can go anywhere in the world, to places where people don't actually speak English, and people can say, verbatim, what I said on the show as Mr. Eko, which is great. That's fun!

  Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

  Fun, Moving, Character

  Source: collider.com

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• You know, even growing up going to school, I had teachers that were against bilingual teaching. I never understood that. My parents always had me speak Spanish first knowing I was going to speak English in school.

  Emily Rios

  Teacher, Growing Up, Teaching

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• I don't hold with abroad and think that foreigners speak English when our backs are turned.

  Quentin Crisp

  Thinking, Speak, Foreigners

  1968 The Naked Civil Servant, ch.4.

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• I grew up in a physical world, and I speak English. The next generation is growing up in a digital world, and they speak social.

  Angela Ahrendts

  Growing Up, Generations, World

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• I haven't been abroad in so long that I almost speak English without an accent now.

  Robert Benchley

  Travel, Long, Accents

  1938 After1903-What?

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• What happened? Did a house fall on your sister?" I asked. Maybe there was a benefit to our language barrier. She pursed her lips. "You can't stay here much longer," she said. My mouth dropped open. "You...you speak English?" She snorted. "Of course.

  Richelle Mead

  Fall, House, Language Barriers

  Richelle Mead (2009). “Blood Promise: A Vampire Academy Novel”, p.128, Penguin

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• I didn't speak English until I came to Pittsburgh.

  Mario Lemieux

  Pittsburgh, Speak

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• Yes, they broke the law, but we can't deport them. Let's get over this pointing fingers and do something about that, whether it - they have to pay a fine, learn to speak English, the history, you can do that. And then you have to give visas for the skills we need.

  Michael Bloomberg

  Law, Skills, Giving

  "Meet The Press" with David Gregory, www.nbcnews.com. August 1, 2010.

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• French: why does this language even exist? Everyone there speaks english anyway.

  Meg Cabot

  Doe, Language, Speak

  Meg Cabot (2015). “Royally Obsessed”, p.156, Pan Macmillan

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• We live in America,' he said. 'Everyone who speaks English understands you. How they interpret you is something else.

  Carrie Fisher

  America, Speak, Said

  Carrie Fisher (2011). “Postcards From the Edge”, p.84, Simon and Schuster

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• Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate. I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue - my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.

  Gloria E. Anzaldúa

  Writing, Voice, White

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• Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.

  Aravind Adiga

  Speak, Said

  Aravind Adiga (2008). “The White Tiger”, p.7, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• I first went to Barcelona in 1975 after university, and I stayed for three years. I learnt Catalan because that's what everyone speaks in the mountains. They speak English to foreigners, but what people say to each other is much more important than what they say to you.

  Colm Toibin

  Years, People, Mountain

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• Both my parents had heavy accents, and so did everybody they knew. It's a rhythm thing - people who speak English where they have to hesitate and think of the right word. And I think it rubbed off.

  Christopher Walken

  Thinking, People, Parent

  "Readers recommend: songs sung with accents" by Peter Kimpton, www.theguardian.com. November 19, 2015.

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• Most English speakers do not have the writer's short fuse about seeing or hearing their language brutalized. This is the main reason, I suspect, that English is becoming the world's universal tongue: English-speaking natives don't care how badly others speak English as long as they speak it. French, once considered likely to become the world's lingua franca, has lost popularity because those who are born speaking it reject this liberal attitude and become depressed, insulted or insufferable when their language is ill used.

  Russell Baker

  Attitude, Long, World

  Russell Baker (1990). “There's a country in my cellar”, William Morrow & Company

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• We had probably our best ever Player of the Year Dance last week. You elected Dennis Wise as Player of the Year. Dennis accepted his award mimicking Vialli, whereupon Zola shouted 'Speak English', Dennis switched to his normal Cockney voice only for Zola to shout 'You're still not speaking English'.

  Ken Bates

  Soccer, Wise, Football

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• More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to.

  Bill Bryson

  People, Trying, World

  Bill Bryson (2015). “The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way”, p.11, HarperCollins

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• The people who run the major banks have MBAs and wear suits. And when those people in suits come to the homes of people who don't have a high school diploma, don't even speak English, and offer them a home at zero percent down, that doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense.

  Ramin Bahrani

  Running, Zero, School

  "99 Homes director Ramin Bahrani on his dream debate between Trump and the Pope". Interview with Charles Bramesco, www.avclub.com. October 1, 2015.

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• My mind speaks English, my heart speaks Russian, and my ear prefers French.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Heart, Mind, Ears

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• The gym teacher's name was Mr. Caruso. Mr. Caruso did
  not speak English. He spoke 'Gym.' One day I was playing
  basketball and Mr. Caruso told me I would have to get
  an athletic supporter. He didn't express himself exactly
  that way, though. He said, 'Hey, you, one day you're gonna
  go up for a rebound and the family jewels aren't gonna
  go with ya.' I had no idea what he was talking about.
  Next day I showed up for practice without my watch and
  my mezuzah. He said, 'Did ya take care of the family jewels?'
  I said, 'I left 'em in my locker.' Took us a half hour to
  revive Mr. Caruso.

  Tommy Lasorda

  Basketball, Teacher, Names

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• I just said let's get some poets on tv. And when they said that sounded unlikely, I made it worse. I said, no man, I want to put a bunch of black poets on stage, too. Some Latino poets who barely speak English and Asian poets who can't believe how discriminated against they are. It was luck nad being in the right place. I wasn't saying nothing somebody else wasn't saying but they wouldn't hear it from them.

  Russell Simmons

  Believe, Men, Black

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Our leaders increasingly see fit to lecture the ethnic minorities on the need to integrate, including of course the need to speak English. What about the need, though, for Britain to integrate with the rest of the world?

  Martin Jacques

  Leader, Needs, Minorities

  "Does it matter if we only speak English?" by Martin Jacques, www.theguardian.com. December 15, 2006.

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• I learned how to speak English watching television.

  Azita Ghanizada

  Television, Speak, Watching Television

  "Azita Ghanizada Exclusive Interview ALPHAS". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. July 8, 2011.

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• My father couldn't speak English when he went to the first grade and I had to work in a factory over Christmas and summer vacations. And I think that's the American way and one of the things that excites me about this race is that pretty much everything I've done I've started at the bottom and been able to finish at the top.

  George Pataki

  Summer, Father, Thinking

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