I don’t know how many languages I’ve learned, but the number is probably high. In fact, at one point in my life, I had a very good grasp of five. These days, though, my skill set is more like… something. It might be better to call it “language” or “languages,” but in any case, I’m no longer very well-versed in any one of them.
When you are learning a new language, it’s impossible to stop. The words of your native tongue sound so foreign and weird to you. You feel ashamed of yourself for not being able to speak correctly your own language and even more ashamed for having tried it in the first place. But every time you learn something new about the language you are trying to learn, your enthusiasm will be renewed and you will have a better understanding of the world around you. See also, language learning quotes.
What are the benefits of learning languages?
There are many benefits to learning other languages, but these vary in person according to their personality and the country of residence.
• Learning a second language not only confers on you a glimpse into another culture, it also improves your vocabulary skills; this makes everyday tasks much easier.
• Being able to get around foreign countries is, of course, an excellent reason for pursuing such studies as well – all over the world most people speak English! Fresh air + a new country = benefits for the brain.
• Being able to read or write in a language other than your native one – as long as you have some sort of translation software (for instance, Pimsleur), is useful if you need to do business with people from that part of the world 😉
• Once I was on my way back home at 2-3 am pretending not be asleep while listening with one ear to the language channel on my mobile; finally I got caught by a police officer who was waiting for someone way back. He grabbed me and started searching all of my belongings… READ about learn English.
Quotes about language learning
“A different language is a different vision of life.”
Federico Fellini
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
“One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.”
Frank Smith
“Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.”
Rita Mae Brown
“He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.”
Geoffrey Willans
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”
Nelson Mandela
“To have another language is to possess a second soul.”
Charlemagne
“Change your language and you change your thoughts.”
Karl Albrecht
“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.”
Flora Lewis
“Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom.”
Roger Bacon
“Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes
“Language is not a genetic gift, it is a social gift. Learning a new language is becoming a member of the club – the community of speakers of that language.”
Frank Smith
“Learn a new language and get a new soul.”
Czech Proverb
“A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.”
Gaston Bachelard
“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.”
Chinese Proverb
“One should not aim at being possible to understand but at being impossible to misunderstand.”
Marcus Fabius Quintilian
“A mistake is to commit a misunderstanding.”
Bob Dylan
Why learning a language is important quotes?
Several Americans were executed or imprisoned for speaking their native language in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was declared as an act of treason against America to speak a foreign language, even if only English – because it would reveal that you have friends abroad who might be trying to stir up trouble; you could teach your children where they get support from foreigners plotting revolution: they all got together fighting on illegal aliens’ behalf.
Your spouse and /or children might fall ill and needing to be treated by a doctor whose native language you have – that is taken as a sign of disloyalty, which they will take out on your whole family if necessary.
It was illegal from 1606/7 – 1783 English speaking people could still smile at strangers in their own country or try to talk with them for fun, even though there were laws forbidding it. But when the British controlled countries after that conflict it was strictly illegal. READ MORE, quotation on language.
The same might be said of other European countries, the Spanish Inquisition terrorized citizens for not speaking their language – or trying to learn one and talking with people who spoke that native language out in public. The laws grew stronger as they increased exponentially in scope; even until today when you live there but keep up a heritage interest related to the country’s issue/s involved speech is watched carefully by authorities; such as in Germany during World War II or the post WWI era in occupied France.
Native English speakers were jailed, whipped and executed for speaking their native language out loud (even if it was a few words). In this country before 1865 free speech was not guaranteed under law nor were citizens’ rights to practice their religion highly acknowledged by state governments; such as on Delaware’s historic Indian River Court House shanty town where almost every citizen there who spoke an Indian language in the road was whipped, imprisoned or hanged by the state militia – if they did not give up.
In conclusion, if you speak the native language of a country’s citizens, or of people from that area – in the public square and get arrested for it, you are a traitor.
The penalties for speaking another language in a public place are not “severe” but they are real; as in real prison time and/or death. So if you want to be safe don’t talk your native language in the public square, especially when you’re on vacation there. In certain countries, it may be a moot point, such as Spain and France where people are more than willing to assume you are an illegal immigrant – without being assholes about it.