linguistic challenge Quotes

In English, there is one word for sister. In Chinese, there are two separate words, for elder and younger sister. This is actually a translation problem because if you see the word sister, you don't know how to translate it to Chinese because you don't know if it's an elder sister or younger.

'Nuclear' is nothing but trouble. Do you say 'new-clear' or do you say 'nuke-you-ler'? Whoever invented that word had obviously never studied the human mouth. We don't have enough muscles in our face to make that group of letters come out smoothly. The word is missing a middle syllable, for cryin' out loud.

I like the way words go together and I like the gamesmanship of writing poetry. It is such a challenge.

I understand English; I read and write English perfectly, but the accent won't go away.

The sibilant s is the most difficult sound to correct.

What Shakespeare was able to do in English he would certainly not have done in French.

To translate a poem from thinking into English takes all night.

It's technically extremely difficult to get down what you really mean, not what you think you mean, or what you think sounds good, but what's really there, what you really have to express, in words that somehow convey that meaning in an approximate way.

I remember reading Dr. Seuss books, and he's rhyming so many words together and I just loved the way it sounded. It became a challenge for me, to put words together that nobody would ever think about putting together.

... suddenly I was a kid in the hall standing outside my locker about to head to Math. But that was how it went sometimes, the English language, when you really needed it, crumbled to clay in your mouth. That's when all the real things were said.

In any language it is a struggle to make a sentence say exactly what you mean.

Honestly, every movie I do in America, the only challenge for me is English. I've done everything already, for me it's pretty easy. Only the English.

For me, my taste isn't limited to magical films. Whatever I read and I like, I go up for, and a lot of the time it's an American accent which can be quite trying, but I'm working on it as much as I can.

I like the challenge of creating a world with only sentences.

Writing in English was a major challenge. I didn't want other songwriters to write for me. I wanted to preserve the spirit of my songs in Spanish. I am the same Shakira in English as I am in Spanish.

I'm going to try to continue to try to speak English because I live in the United States.

When I am out in Liverpool, the fans come up and talk to me. But I cannot take in everything they say because I don't understand all of it.

The fact that I didn't speak English I think was the most difficult thing for me.

Physicist is both to my mouth and ears so awkward that I think I shall never use it. The equivalent of three separate sounds of "I" in one word is too much.

If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.

English is not my first language.

Basque is one of the world's more alarming languages. Only a handful of adult foreigners, they say, have ever managed to learn it. The Devil tried once and mastered only three words - profanities, I assume.

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.

I made myself memorize how to spell antidisestablishmentarianism in under 3 seconds when I was 6 years old because my sister told me it was the longest word she knew.

Everyone knows English is my second language and my vocabulary is not as broad as it is in Spanish, and because of this, sometimes I use the wrong words to express myself.