
It's important to me to work in my own language now and then. I love English, but you can never learn to master a foreign language if you're not brought up with it.
quote by Max von Sydow

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
yes, what if God does not speak english at all?
you were not born yesterday
and probably heard it before
that if your God does not speak english
then he must not be God
of course, something arrogant
hangs in the air
of this effortless superiority that
'englishers'
'english-plongplangs'
clai m, which, of course, we
always oppose and dub
as prettry dumb silly
but anyhow, yes, we are asked again
what if?
what if, this God, does not really speak English?
well, of course, he is still God
and he must not have considered the english language
that important
and i agree, even if i speak it,
i still have this language
of my soul,
albeit, in english, for you,
who does not speak my own language,
yes, of course, for you to perhaps
understand,
but i like it though, this thought
that God does not speak
the english language, lest, he may sound
so englishly, oh well,
arrogant.....
dear God
do you really...not speak english?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Finglish
I am from Finland and i speak 'Finglish'!
Because i am learning the English language and,
It always infuses with my Finnish.
I am learning to keep me going but,
I do speak my English like 'Finglish'! !
And i always try to enforce the truth of my peace like,
The subconscious act from my mind to muse up things:
But i am unaware of your love.
Try to keep me informed on this love and,
Try to teach me the English language so that i cam be with you;
For the heavens and the earth do know how i do speak.
Keep me on the tracks of your love and teach me more!
For one day i will learn the English language very well;
And i will be ready to teach you my Finnish language as well.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Who's To Blame
Oh Mother Ghana; Mother Ghana
What has happened to you?
What has happened to your culture?
They say we've fold arms against 'Vernacular' language
Instead opened arms wide to 'English' language
Oh Mother Ghana Mother Ghana
Why?
At school, we are taught the things we do not know
By the 'English' language
Why not 'Vernacular' language?
Oh Mother Ghana, Oh Mother Ghana
Where is your true identity as pure African?
Where is your pride as true Ghanaian?
Oh Mother Ghana, Oh Mother Ghana,
Day after day
When we put on the uniform as students
We are forbidden to speak 'Vernacular' language
Instead the 'English' language
Why Mother Ghana, why Mother Ghana?
When we speak 'Vernacular' language; your culture,
They say: 'Speak English' someone's culture!
When we speak 'English' that someone's culture
They say: 'Abrofosem; speak vernacular language' your culture!
Oh Mother Ghana, Oh Mother Ghana
Who's to blame?
'English or Vernacular language'
Oh Mother Ghana; Oh Mother Ghana.
poem by Francis Julian Zewu

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Our common language is ... English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language.
quote by William John Bennett

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Our common language is English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language.
quote by William Bennett

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
English uniqueness
Letters are twenty six.
Words are millions.
That is language.
Vowels are five.
Phonetics is twenty two.
That is confusion.
English is a language
No one could master.
31.01.2006
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Foreign Language
Foreign language
Is a road that goes parallel
With our mother language
Every time we learn a new word and its meaning
We make a bridge between them
And when we have known most of all
We can walk together in wider road
poem by Maria Sudibyo

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

I think foreign countries really do like it when American artists sing in their language. And when you go over there and say, 'Hi, how are you?' in their language, they love it. It makes them feel like you're doing it just for them. We in America take so much for granted.
quote by Natalie Cole

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Language I Feel Most At Home In
THE LANGUAGE I FEEL MOST AT HOME IN
The language I feel most at home in
Is not my own.
My own sacred language
Is my second best.
English is too great for me
And I am not like Joyce
Able to contend with and transcend it –
I write my small lines in the language
Shakespeare is the glass of fashion and the mould of form of –
I one more minor actor in a cast of many millions
Play my words upon the page as best I can.
But why mind and remember me and mine
When there are so many and so so much far greater?
poem by Shalom Freedman

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.
quote by Donald Knuth

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.
quote by Martin Heidegger

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Poetry cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language.
quote by Samuel Johnson

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Mass Communications
after learning
the english language
and having mastered
it so well
now you are on your
own
as a reporter
you have to learn
the language of the
masses again
you an alien
of the masses
must take back
that lost
appeal
i want to make this sound
like a poem
for you
but i know it won't
are you gonna
be poetic when doing
a reporting job?
about the mass killing
in ampatuan?
gee, i guess not
sorry.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Language That The Poor Wants To Speak
do you speak good English?
do you take pride in it and then use it to impress others
and swindle them
into a belief that they are inferior?
they have feelings too
of humiliation
which even in such a sad state
wish that their humiliation
speak good English still
they always think that English will give them
a good job
a better standing in the society
a flare of fashionable tongue
you make them cry
but still they want to speak that cry in English too
foolish!
but can you blame them?
you who hold that power and might
you who have taken all what they once had
and made them
worse within
themselves
despite which,
they still want to be like you
to speak like you
a god
how sad!
you have never known the language of love
the grammar of generosity
the syntax of sympathy
that language that good English
sometimes has forgotten
to utter
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Write, Write, Write
Write in the language you dream in.
But this had never made sense
as far as I remember, I’ve never dreamt in nouns and verbs,
but always in huge boxes,
or dark abandoned malls,
or long flights
where my slippers are lost and my baggage,
missing.
Perhaps i should write in the language
that wakes me
That keeps me restless,
that feeds my hunger,
that reminds me that
i am alive.
it’s a matter of hearing
the heartbeat of one’s words
I can’t wait for more writers to write
Perhaps if the work of critics and teachers
will eventually bear fruit,
it will not be too far off that the streets of my town
will one day be filled again
with the lyrical lilt of my own language
I also can’t blame those
who continue to write in English
and live
in English
which is easy to dismiss as snooty
and elitist,
and alien—
even if it is the same village street,
the same home
that is being woven into words.
A tongue only becomes alien
when we keep it at the gate,
at the door.
The stranger is only as strange
as when we do not know his name,
and he does not know ours.
the job of the writer is not really
to master his language,
but to make it his own.
Not just to study its syntax
and shape but
to invite it into his home.
To kidnap bored English from the court offices
and banks
and schools,
and bring it to our beautiful messy rooms.
To tell it our stories,
whisper into its ear
our dreams,
and if the timing is right,
and the intention is clear,
then to show it our hearts
and we’ll begin to write.
Really really write.
Without guilt.
* reflections by L.L. YPIL
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Also, they don't understand - writing is language. The use of language. The language to create image, the language to create drama. It requires a skill of learning how to use language.
quote by John Milius

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Secret Language Of Birds
This sparkling wine is all but empty.
Too late for trains and no taxis.
I know the feeling. seems all too contrived.
There was no master plan but the fact is:
You must stay with me and learn the secret language of birds.
A tentative dawn about to be breaking
On a rousseau garden with monkeys in hiding.
The truth of the matter, yet to be spoken
In words on which everything, everythings riding.
Now stay with me and learn the secret language of birds.
Circled by swallows
In a world for the weary.
Courted by warblers; wicked and eloquent trilling.
Lie in the stillness, window cracked open.
Extended moments, hours for the taking.
Careless hair on the pillow, a bold brushstroke.
Painted verse with a chorus in waiting.
Stay with me and learn the secret language of birds.
song performed by by Jethro Tull

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
This is America: Better know English
America was once the magnificent place
Where all immigrants wanted to escape
So they illegally come here, as illegal aliens
Hiding in the back of our American vans
Now our schools and jobs require multiple languages
When we’re the Americans, we’re supposed to speak English!
And we do and just because they don’t
Doesn’t mean their language is a demand we should know
Don’t come to America if you don’t know the language
I’m just being realistic, I’m not being racist
Don’t put up store signs if they’re not readable
You’re in America; English is the main language you should know
Then they’re pissed because people won’t help out their business
But their forgetting us Americans don’t speak their language
We don’t go to Mexico demanding English classes
So why should they own the right to demand us Spanish?
I love the language, and everything BUT
THIS IS AMERICA look our history up!
Then tell me if French should be required
Where in the hell in the time line is that desired?
I know this is the land of opportunity, land of the free
But we should be able to communicate as human beings
And if that’s just too hard no one said they had to stay here
They can go back where they came from and speak in harmony there
I’m just a full blood American, as so the rest of my family
And like others, our language should be the first they’re demanding
We're tired of going to our fastfood restaurants to eat
When the orderer of our order can't even speak
And buyers, don't buy our house
If you can't even pronounce our street out
I'm tired of security going through all our private equipment
I'm an American, Bitch, do I look like a terrorist?
Honestly, you can come here if you want to be
Since this is the best place of opportunity
And we don’t care if you speak 20 different languages and love them
But this is AMERICA, ENGLISH better be one of them!
poem by Sugar Bear

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
No one gets angry at a mathematician or a physicist whom he or she doesn't understand, or at someone who speaks a foreign language, but rather at someone who tampers with your own language.
quote by Jacques Derrida

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Ramdas, Start Talking With New Language!
Ramdas, start Talking with New Language,
Talk with people and every life,
That language which can take world to new dimension,
Or world shine with beauty and freshness,
Be the one among builders of new world!
Language of love and acceptance,
language that comes from the
depth of the heart,
affectionate and humble,
language that is full of gratitude,
Free of doubts and fear, Language of smile and presence
of mind,
Mindfulness which uses silence
and words well balanced,
the world to new dimensions,
Make world Look like a new world in the light of wisdom!
poem by Ramdas Bhandarkar

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!