Languages Quotes
Fidelity is surely our highest aim, but a translation is not made with tracing paper. It is an act of critical interpretation. Let me insist on the obvious: Languages trail immense, individual histories behind them, and no two languages, with all their accretions of tradition and culture, ever dovetail perfectly. They can be linked by translation, as a photograph can link movement and stasis, but it is disingenuous to assume that either translation or photography, or acting for that matter, are representational in any narrow sense of the term. Fidelity is our noble purpose, but it does not have much, if anything, to do with what is called literal meaning. A translation can be faithful to tone and intention, to meaning. It can rarely be faithful to words or syntax, for these are peculiar to specific languages and are not transferable.
Edith Grossman
I figured out that art would be the perfect place for me because what's encouraged is the invention of languages.
David Altmejd
Learn Languages the Right Way. Language acquisition games and abstract communicative method are bullshit. The second-best way to learn a foreign language is alone in a room doing skull-numbing rote memorization of vocabulary, grammar, key phrases, and colloquialisms. The best way is in bed.
Chuck Thompson
I have learned to interface - what I think would be the contemporary term - with various different lexicons, and people speak very different languages. I've learned to speak in a lot of tongues, and I can live with the bellicose language of some fervent, fire-breathing Christians, sure.
Bono
U2
I wish that I spoke more languages because I think each language is a window completely.
El Anatsui
The day is past when schools could afford to give sufficient time and attention to the teaching of the ancient languages to enable the student to get that enjoyment out of classical literature that made the lives of our grandfathers so rich.
James Loeb
The people of the world, all of them, whether it is the different race or the different language or the different lifestyle, tend to only think about what we cannot share. But our brains are all the same. We are the same people. With everyone’s strength, we can all share the same feelings. That much is obvious. But it won’t come easily.
Naoko Takeuchi
A special skill, like speaking several languages, or keeping your mouth shut in one.
Evan Esar
I'm studying Finnish, and it's one of the five most difficult languages in the world. And the more I learn, the more I realize that's definitely true.
Floor Jansen
Nightwish
They were always like two people talking to each other in different languages. But she loved him so much, when he withdrew as he had now done, it was like the warm sun going down and leaving her in chilly twilight dews.
Margaret Mitchell
That sort of detailed filmmaking is one, hard to do and not have it be pretentious, and two, have it tell the story, which is what you're taught, that cinema is the language of images and you really should be able to make a film with no dialogue and tell a story.
Nicole Kidman
Love will find its way through all languages on its own.
Rumi
Which meant I spent my spare time learning theory, studying dead languages and reading books like Essays on The Metaphysical by John "never saw a polysyllabic word he didn't like" Cartwright.
Ben Aaronovitch
I am very sorry, but I cannot learn languages. I have tried hard, only to find that men of ordinary capacity can learn Sanskrit in less time that it takes me to buy a German Dictionary...
George Bernard Shaw
