A Quote by John Boyega

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

Quote Topics

Dad Disabled English First Fortunate Language Less Less Fortunate Minister Mum My Dad Nigerian Second Worker

Quote Author

John Boyega
British - Actor
Born: March 17, 1992

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. My mum and dad moved to London when they had my eldest sister. They started a life in London as immigrants, and they built up from there. They're no actors in my family, but there are definitely animated black people in my family.

John Boyega

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

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Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh

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

Adam Clymer

I don't hate language. I have my own language, but I also enjoy the English language. Obviously, you don't read a lot of literature and not care about language.

Twyla Tharp

Most English speakers do not have the writer's short fuse about seeing or hearing their language brutalized. This is the main reason, I suspect, that English is becoming the world's universal tongue: English-speaking natives don't care how badly others speak English as long as they speak it. French, once considered likely to become the world's lingua franca, has lost popularity because those who are born speaking it reject this liberal attitude and become depressed, insulted or insufferable when their language is ill used.

Russell Baker

When we say 'less fortunate,' we generally mean the poor rather than the disabled, who actually are less fortunate. In truth, the poor are generally 'less fortunate' only in terms of genetics. They are certainly not less fortunate in the amount of help they receive.

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English is my second language. Laughter is my first.

Paul Krassner

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.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o

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.