A Quote by Jon Secada

I write in English first, and then I translate to Spanish. I've always felt more comfortable with the English side of things first. — © Jon Secada
I write in English first, and then I translate to Spanish. I've always felt more comfortable with the English side of things first.
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.
My first language is both English and Spanish. My mom was raised in Los Angeles, so with her we spoke English, but my father was born in Cuba, so with him we spoke Spanish.
Actually, my first group was a folkloric group, an Argentine folkloric group when I was 10. By the time I was 11 or 12 I started writing songs in English. And then after a while of writing these songs in English it came to me that there was no reason for me to sing in English because I lived in Argentina and also there was something important [about Spanish], so I started writing in Spanish.
English football is very physical, much more so than Spanish football - I felt it in the first match.
I speak English and Spanish. I write in Spanish; my books are published in English.
English is my first language, but musically speaking, I write my music in Spanish.
I have always felt most comfortable singing in English, perhaps because I think in English.
Spanish was my first language. Honestly, I learned to first speak in Spanish, not English, because my poor mother had to go to San Diego every day to work and then come back. And she would come home when I was an infant long after I was asleep.
Writing in English was a major challenge. I didn't want other songwriters to write for me. I wanted to preserve the spirit of my songs in Spanish. I am the same Shakira in English as I am in Spanish.
First grade was - I spoke only Spanish, and second grade - probably a bit more English. And by the time I hit third grade, I was learning, of course, much, much more English.
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.
You never know what little idea or joke, what flame flickering really quickly, will become a song. That first idea, it can come any time. If it's in Spanish, you go on in Spanish. If it's in French, French. If it's in English, English. Or Portuguese. I'll try to do my best. I like Italian, though I don't speak it much.
Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate. I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue - my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.
I grew up speaking Spanish and English. My mother can speak Spanish, English, French and Italian, and she's pretty good at faking Portuguese. I wish that I spoke more languages than I do.
One of the first things that my English teacher told when I began studying in New York was, "You're here because if you pick it up from the street, not everyone speaks good English." And it happens all the time, anywhere. If you pick up Spanish from the streets, you're not going to be able to speak it correctly.
Whenever I write my music, it's always been in English first and then I take it into Korean.
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