A Quote by Jhumpa Lahiri

I don't know Bengali perfectly. I don't know how to write it or even read it. I have an accent, I speak without authority, and so I've always perceived a disjunction between it and me. As a result, I consider my mother tongue, paradoxically, a foreign language.

Jhumpa Lahiri

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Accent Always Authority Bengali Between Consider Even Foreign Foreign Language How Know Know How Language Me Mother Mother Tongue Perceived Perfectly Read Result Speak Tongue Without Write

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Jhumpa Lahiri
American - Author
Born: July 11, 1967

My parents speak with an accent. A lot of people that I know speak with an accent. I have friends who speak with an accent. Accents in a vacuum aren't a problem; it's how you portray those characters and how well they're served in a script.

Hong Chau

People who've read my reviews know my tastes, know how I approach a book, know my background. I can write with believable authority. It doesn't mean I'm always right.

Michael Dirda

Once, a man at the customs duty check at the Delhi Airport asked me a question in Hindi, and I told him that I didn't speak the language. He got angry and said, 'How could you not speak in Hindi? Hindi is our mother tongue.' I told him that it wasn't my mother tongue. He got furious, and made me wait for over 45 minutes.

Vetrimaaran

He would always speak the language of the heart with an awkward foreign accent.

Orson Scott Card

[My mother tongue is] Albanian. But, I am equally fluent in Bengali (language of Calcutta) and English.

Mother Teresa

My mother is half Malayali and half Tamilian. I can speak Bengali and Tamil, but can't read or write.

Anoushka Shankar

Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world

Amy Tan

My earliest memory is having my grandfather, who was born in 1899, read the newspaper to me in a foreign language. I was utterly captivated by the fact that he took the time to read it to me. I didn't know what he saying, it was in a completely different language. I think it was in French. But I was just so honored that he was with me and talking to me. It's extraordinary that you know someone from that time, and also someone that's willing to give you the time of day, who's lived through so much.

Nina Arianda

I learnt to sing in Bengali, my mother tongue, then went on to sing in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati and every possible Indian language.

Shreya Ghoshal

Symptoms are the body's mother tongue; signs are in a foreign language.

John Brown

His scowl returned. "Why, if they're supposed to be Greek, are all of them speaking with an English accent?" She laughed. "Didn't you know that British is, like, the universal 'foreign' language in Hollywood? They use it in any movie where they want to have a foreign feel to it, regardless of where it's set

Sherrilyn Kenyon

I know Asian actors out there won't even audition for a role that have an accent. But for me, I was the kid with an accent. I still have an accent to some degree.

Jimmy O. Yang

I was born in Bangalore but grew up in Kolkata and I read, write and speak Bengali.

Kiran Rao

I still have an accent. But when I return to Prague, I speak the language yet do not know what they are talking about.

Peter Sis

I know what it’s like to be torn between a love so pure it burns you deep down in a place you didn’t know someone could touch you and between your oath and duties. Between the love of a father you’ve always known and one you know you can depend on forever versus a love that’s new and untested. But you know what I learned? It’s a lot easier to live without my father’s love than it is to live without Phoebe’s. (Urian) (Acheron didn’t speak as Urian left him alone.) That just makes you want to vomit, doesn’t it? (Jaden)

Sherrilyn Kenyon

I think the most annoying language is a tie between all the ones I don't know how to speak.

Demetri Martin

A Quote by Jhumpa Lahiri

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