A Quote by Mike Shannon

I've heard it said that if you know English, Spanish, Italian, and I think it's French, you can go just about anywhere in this world...except for China where they have all those derelicts.
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.
I was raised speaking English and Spanish. And I also speak Danish. And I can get by in French and Italian. I've acted in Spanish and English, but when something has to do with emotions, sometimes I feel I can get to the heart of the matter better in Spanish.
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.
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, my wife speaks five languages: Russian, English, French, Italian and, out of self-defense, Spanish. I watched her learn Spanish in three months.
I can speak English, Portuguese, and a bit of Spanish, or Sportugal. It's a mix of Portuguese and Spanish. I understand French and Italian, but I can't speak them.
Many of the books I read, I had to read them in French, English, or Italian, because they hadn't been translated into Spanish.
But still, I’d be darned if I was going to be one of those Americans who stomp around Italy barking commands in ever-louder English. I was going to be one of those Americans who traversed Italy with my forehead knit in concentration, divining wordsw from their Latin roots and answering by wedging French cognates into Italian pronunciations spliced onto a standard Spanish verb conjugation.
I think the French agonise more about being French, I don't think English think about being English that much. I think the Scottish think about being Scottish and the Welsh think about being Welsh, but the English don't really care. But the French think about it all the time, it's an absolute preoccupation.
When I go to Colombia or Mexico, I speak Spanish. When I go to Italy, I speak Italian. When I'm in Germany, I speak German. Would I expect them to speak English in these countries? No. I mean, great if they do, but no. Would I be offended if in Spain they say we speak Spanish? No. If I was an immigrant there, no.
It's easier for me to act in Spanish, but as soon as I get the lines in English and I know them by heart, it becomes really easy. You don't have to worry about the language anymore. It just takes more time. In Spanish, I can learn lines in 10 minutes. In English, it's going to take an hour.
The more English is heard in the world, the more gratifying it seems to speak French, and above all to know the culture of our country. They find a kind of French social grace in the language and culture.
I think that a lot of teams aren't as close-knit as we are because a lot of the Spanish speakers don't know English and some of the English guys don't care to try and learn Spanish and relate to Latin players.
I went to Brown to be a French professor, and I didn't know what I was doing except that I loved French. When I got to Paris and I could speak French, I know how much it helped me to establish relationships with Karl Lagerfeld, with the late Yves St. Laurent. French, it just helps you if you're in fashion. The French people started style.
I changed my major to English literature, which was on the advice of my father. I finally said, "You know, Dad, to heck with it: I'm just going to be an actor. But I'm going to go to school." And he said, "Well, if you're going to go to school, then major in English literature. Those are the tools you are going to be working with as a man who's going to be acting in English, one would assume."
But I don't know, maybe it's just as well I never got there. I dreamed about it for so many years. I used to go to English movies just to look at the streets. I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I'd go looking for the England of English Literature, and he nodded and said: "It's there.
I must confess, my Spanish is not so good - except I read a little, so I started with the English but then determined that it would have to be in Spanish.
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