A Quote by Ethan Hawke

It's always a unique challenge when you're working with somebody where English is their second language.

Ethan Hawke

Quote Topics

Always Challenge English Language Second Somebody Unique Working

Quote Author

Ethan Hawke
American - Actor
Born: November 6, 1970

I have a funny relationship to language. When I came to California when I was three I spoke Urdu fluently and I didn't speak a word of English. Within a few months I lost all my Urdu and spoke only English and then I learned Urdu all over again when I was nine. Urdu is my first language but it's not as good as my English and it's sort of become my third language. English is my best language but was the second language I learned.

Mohsin Hamid

Gore speaks to America as if English is its second language; George W. speaks as if English is his second language.

Adam Clymer

Somebody said to me that I speak English almost like somebody for whom English is not their first language.

Christopher Walken

An American customer can book in English all over the world, but also, somebody from Japan or China can book in their own language everywhere. We translate all of our content into these languages, and that's quite unique. We service our direct customers - the innkeepers - as well in their own language.

Gillian Tans

Sign language is my first language. English and Spanish are my second languages. I learned Spanish from my grandparents, sign language from my parents, and English from television.

Jack Jason

Being here in the United States, English is not my first language. It's kind of a challenge for me, a big challenge for my family.

Shinsuke Nakamura

One of my favorite tricks was taking a page and having the first student translate it from English into whatever language he or she was working on, and the next one would translate it back into English and then into the foreign language, and we'd go around the room and compare the two English versions at the end, and it would be amazing how much survived.

Gregory Rabassa

James Joyce's English was based on the rhythm of the Irish language. He wrote things that shocked English language speakers but he was thinking in Gaelic. I've sung songs that if they were in English, would have been banned too. The psyche of the Irish language is completely different to the English-speaking world.

Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh

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

When Nigeria actually gave me the call-up I thought 'oh, it's going to be a challenge, I don't go back there a lot, I don't really speak the language.' I wasn't speaking the language as fluently as I am now, so it was always going to be a challenge, but it was a challenge I decided to take and change nationalities.

Alex Iwobi

My mother always spoke to me in English, so it's technically my maternal language, and it became a kind of private language - I was happy that I could speak in English to my mum and the majority of people wouldn't understand it.

Lou Doillon

Language is possible due to a number of cognitive and physical characteristics that are unique to humans but none of which that are unique to language. Coming together they make language possible. But the fundamental building block of language is community.

Daniel Everett

My dad is a minister, and my mum is a worker with the less fortunate and the disabled. They're Nigerian natives. Their first language is Yoruba, and their second language is English.

John Boyega

English has always been my musical language. When I started writing songs when I was 13 or 14, I started writing in English because it's the language in between. I speak Finnish, I speak French, so I'll write songs in English because that's the music I listen to. I learned so much poetry and the poetic way of expressing myself is in English.

Olivia Merilahti

Maybe because English is my second language, maybe I just translate mundane clichés from the Welsh language and they sound original in English. I am going through a bit of an obsession with bad puns. I am hoping I'll grow out of it. Maybe it's just a phase.