Across the Atlantic, commercial therapy of all kinds provides so many more comfortable outlets for people when they are under pressure. The English tradition is to get a grip, whereas the American version is to get in touch with your feelings, to say...
Even though I have spent literally years of my life trying to learn another language, any other language - and even though I have in the past claimed in several key professional contexts that I speak other languages - I am in fact still trapped insid...
If you're eight and you live in Los Angeles and everybody has toys and you go to a country that has a Marxist dictatorship and there are no toy stores and nobody speaks English and it's blazing hot every day and they only have fish, which you don't l...
I don't know French at all. I took some lessons when I was younger but all I know are the numbers. I've been told basically everyone in Monaco speaks English because of it being a huge vacation spot so I'm excited about that. I might not need to lear...
When I took part in European leaders summits, it was sometimes unpleasant for me to hear Romanian, Polish, Portuguese, and Italian friends speak English, although I admit that on an informal basis, first contacts can be made in this language. Neverth...
I first went to Barcelona in 1975 after university, and I stayed for three years. I learnt Catalan because that's what everyone speaks in the mountains. They speak English to foreigners, but what people say to each other is much more important than w...
Did you know that the origin of the word gossip in English is "god-sibling"? It's the talk between people who are godparents to the same child, people who have a legitimate loving interest in the person they talk about. It's talk that weaves a net of...
I need not repeat familiar arguments about the waste of teachers' time, and the difficulties thrown in the way of English children trying to learn their own language; or the fact that nobody without a visual memory for words ever succeeds in spelling...
During my years of professional cricket in England, I realised that although the Australians were talented players, tactically they were a bit naive when compared to those who played full-time on the English circuit. You might find this arrogant, but...
I often find during a day of shooting I will speak in an American accent all day long when I'm doing dialogue. At the end of the day, it often takes an effort when I'm talking to my fiancee to bring my English back just because you're so used to spea...
Coaches have got to be given rank within the university so that you can't fire a coach unless you go through an academic committee, just as you would with a professor. If coaches are to have any stability and security, they need to be treated like an...
British actors come at acting from a slightly different angle. Because a lot of the films are cast out there, they are so used to the angle from which the Americans, and certainly the young guys from L.A., are coming at it, that I think it's interest...
When you have lived your life under such dominant image-leadership, its pressures put a certain invisible English on the cue ball of your development: It influences all of your ideas about who you should be, all the ways in which you become yourself.
Bridget von Hammersmark: I can see since you didn't see what happened inside, the Nazis being there must look odd. Lt. Aldo Raine: Yeah, we got a word for that kinda odd in English. It's called suspicious.
Sydney: Don't let me die like this. I hate it. Will you give me a hero's death, old friend? You see, I... I didn't keep one last bullet. Joe (Cantonese)/Jeffrey (English): I understand, Sydney. I have one.
Joe (Cantonese)/Jeffrey (English): They aren't just gonna let me walk out. I have no future! Can't you see that? Walk out and tell 'em you're a cop; see what happens to you! You think that'll make any difference?
Prince Feisal: Gasim's time has come, Lawrence. It is written. T.E. Lawrence: Nothing is written. Sherif Ali: You will not be at Aqaba, English! Go back, blasphemer... but you will not be at Aqaba! T.E. Lawrence: I shall be at Aqaba. That, IS written...
T.E. Lawrence: We do not work this thing for Feisal. Auda abu Tayi: No? For the English, then? T.E. Lawrence: For the Arabs. Auda abu Tayi: The Arabs? The Howitat, Ajili, Rala, Beni Saha; these I know, I have even heard of the Harif, but the Arabs? W...
Rooster Cogburn: [LaBoeuf has been talking about malum prohibitum and malum in se] It astonishes me that Mr. LaBoeuf has been shot, trampled, and nearly bitten his tongue off, and yet not only does he continue to talk but he spills the banks of Engli...
Florentino: [attempting to translate what the Mexican priest said] He talkin loco... crazy... somethin' about a sick horse comin' to get us. Johnny Ringo: That's not what he said, you ignorant wretch. Your Spanish is worse than your English.
I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying; he wanted me to make up dialogue.
