A Quote by Ha Jin

English has more flexibility. It's a very plastic, very shapeable, very expressive language. In that sense it feels quite natural. — © Ha Jin
English has more flexibility. It's a very plastic, very shapeable, very expressive language. In that sense it feels quite natural.
English is a very expressive language.
When we start making distinctions between soul and spirit, we're in very, very murky waters. There is the whole issue of the English language, which has a rather limited vocabulary when it comes to psychological descriptions, not to speak of spiritual descriptions. We're good mythically - the English language is superb for myth. But we're not very good for psychology or spirituality.
In English, you can find writers with a wonderful sense of humor, like Oscar Wilde. But in the French language, this is very special, and de Sade is one of the very brave writers with a sense of humor. But most people don't understand that. When they read de Sade, they take it seriously. They say, "Oh, what an awful man!" He is really a very unknown writer.
If you listen to the urban speech patterns there you'll find it's quite characteristic that a sentence will begin in one language, go through a second language and end in a third. It's the very playful, very natural result of juggling languages. You are always reaching for the most appropriate phrase.
In Buenos Aires, I have a very close friend who speaks very good English, and she taught me. It was quite difficult because the muscles of your mouth are used to your language, and then when you want to speak another language, they don't go to the place they need to go to make the sound.
Literature belongs first and foremost to the language in which it is being written. The very same book, even if it is translated very accurately, let's say from Hebrew into English or from English into Hebrew, becomes a different book because language is a musical instrument.
Country music... doesn't bend notes in the same way, so I suppose it's very English, really. Even though it's been very Americanized, it feels very close to me, to my roots, so to speak.
What happens when you speak colloquial Hebrew is you switch between registers all the time. So in a typical sentence, three words are biblical, one word is Russian, and one word is Yiddish. This kind of connection between very high language and very low language is very natural, people use it all the time.
Perl was designed to work more like a natural language. It's a little more complicated but there are more shortcuts, and once you learned the language, it's more expressive.
In terms of language, English is very dominant vis-Ã-vis African language. That in itself is a power relationship - between languages and communities - because the English language is a determinant of the ladder to achievement.
Relative to oil, however, natural gas is very cheap and very attractive. And I think that natural gas in emerging markets is very attractive. There is very little natural gas infrastructure in places such as China, where there is tremendous demand for natural gas.
The very same book, even if it is translated very accurately, let's say from Hebrew into English or from English into Hebrew, becomes a different book because language is a musical instrument.
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.
Of course, English is a very powerful language, a colonizer's language and a gift to a writer. English has destroyed and sucked up the languages of other cultures - its cruelty is its vitality.
I think I was just lucky to be brought up in a very musical family. My two older brothers were, and still are, very musical and very creative, and music was a big part of my life from a very young age, so it is quite natural for me to become involved in music in the way that I did.
I'm a person of the arts. I love the arts very, very, very much. And ah, I'm a musician, I'm a director, I'm a writer, I'm a composer, I'm a producer, and I love the medium. I love film very, very much. I think it's the most expressive of all of the art mediums.
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