A Quote by Anna Funder

I remember learning German - so beautiful, so strange - at school in Australia on the other side of the earth. My family was nonplussed about me learning such an odd, ugly language and, though of course too sophisticated to say it, the language of the enemy. But I liked the sticklebrick nature of it, building long supple words by putting short ones together. Things could be brought into being that had no name in English - Weltanschauung, Schadenfreude, sippenhaft, Sonderweg, Scheissfreundlichkeit, Vergangenheitsbewältigung.

Anna Funder

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About Australia Beautiful Being Brought Building Could Course Earth Enemy English Family German Had Language Learning Liked Long Me My Family Name Nature Odd Other Putting Remember Say Schadenfreude School Short Side Sophisticated Strange Supple Things Though Together Too Ugly Words

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Anna Funder
Australian - Author
Born: 1966

I studied French in high school and German in college and I once took a 24-hour Italian crash course. English has by far the most words in it of any other language. Our money might not be worth anything anymore, but the language is.

Roy Blount, Jr.

There was a language specific to all things. The ability to learn another language in one arena, whether it was music, medicine, or finance, could be used to accelerate learning and other arenas, too.

Chris Gardner

Particularly for English people, Shakespeare is always at the forefront of both drama and the English language. He's always been there. I can't remember starting school and not learning about him.

Jamie Campbell Bower

Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.

Flora Lewis

The first song I remember listening to in a language other than German was 'Goldfinger,' by Shirley Bassey. I was seven years old at the time and I had no idea which language it was or who the lady was singing it, but it touched me and I realised that it was the sort of music I liked.

Conchita Wurst

Language is the primary way we communicate with each other, and we have really strong feelings about what words mean, and about good language and bad. Those things are really based on sort of an agglutination of half-remembered rules from high school or college, and our own personal views on language and the things we grew up saying, the things we grew up being told not to say.

Kory Stamper

All the kids are learning different languages. I asked them what languages they wanted to learn, and Shi is learning Khmai, which is a Cambodian language; Pax is focusing on Vietnamese, Mad has taken to German and Russian, Z is speaking French, Vivienne really wanted to learn Arabic, and Knox is learning sign language.

Angelina Jolie

I'm German! Actually, I love my countr, ;I love the language. The German language is very special because it is so precise. There is a word for everything. There are so many wonderful words that other languages don't have. It is impressive to have such a rich language, and I love to work in that language.

Sebastian Koch

Learning astrology is like learning any foreign language. You already have the ideas, concepts, and experiences of your life within you; you are just learning a new language for what you are already experiencing.

Barbara Goldsmith

The biggest issue for me has been the language because I speak so much German now. I've had to focus on my English and find more words to describe what I want to say and also soften my tone. It was quite stiff from 20 years of speaking German, so when I started speaking more English, oh my god, my tongue was like: 'Argh'!

Motsi Mabuse

I believe we are being dishonest with language minority groups if we tell them they can take full part in American life without learning the English language.

S. I. Hayakawa

I suspected learning a language would be both useful and enjoyable (I love memorising lists of things), and would get rid of the embarrassment of being monolingual at 21. I'd been obsessed with reading for as long as I could remember, the only thing I'd ever thought I might want to be was a writer, but I was much better at crafting sentences than at stringing plots together.

Deborah Smith

When I was in high school, I started learning English as my second foreign language, but my level of English at that time was very average.

Petr Cech

I am a part of the old school where I feel that purity of the language should be retained. But English is a constantly evolving language where new words are being added to the dictionary, so I don't see any harm in experimenting with the language. Only poor editing standards need to be improved.

Ashwin Sanghi

One of my big milestones came when I turned forty and promised myself to stop worrying about all the things I thought I might do but never really would. I was very relieved when I realized that you can actually complete a project by dropping it. That's how I "completed" learning to cook and learning German, becoming a good skier, and a list of other things too long to recite!

Arianna Huffington

I spent ten years in London; I trained there. But because I started in English, it kind of feels the most natural to me, to act in English, which is a strange thing. My language is Spanish; I grew up in Argentina. I speak to my family in Spanish, but if you were to ask me what language I connect with, it'd be English in some weird way.

Juan Pablo Di Pace

A Quote by Anna Funder

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