Travelling the world and visiting new countries is one of the best things you can do in life. And this experience can be made even better if you are able to converse in other languages.
Whether it be learning just basic words and phases like hello, thank you and goodbye, local people will be really impressed and also appreciate the gesture.
Knowing another language can also open up some so many opportunities too, from making new friends, getting a dream job, boosting career prospects or just helping with travelling or living abroad.
But actually spending time studying and becoming fluent in a new language isn’t easy and can be a challenge, especially when first starting out. If you are looking to get started check out a website like Language Courses – you can find online and classroom courses all around the world.
If you need some motivation to learn a new language view these quotes which will hopefully inspire you!
Check out our list of the best quotes for language learners below.
- “Speak a new language so that the world will be a new world.” – Rumi
- “A different language is a different vision of life.” – Federico Fellini
- “He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein
- “Change your language and you change your thoughts.” – Karl Albrecht
- “As a hawk flieth not high with one wing, even so a man reacheth not to excellence with one tongue.” – Roger Ascham
- “A new language is a new life.” – Persian Proverb
- “One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.” – Frank Smith
- “Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.” – Chinese Proverb
- “Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.” – Rita Mae Brown
- “You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.” – Geoffrey Willans
- “Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.” – Flora Lewis
- “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.” – Nelson Mandela
- “With languages, you are at home anywhere.” – Edward De Waal
- The joy of knowing a foreign language is inexpressible. I find it really difficult to express such joy in my mother tongue. ― Munia Khan
- “It is astonishing how much enjoyment one can get out of a language that one understands imperfectly.” — Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve
- “Language comes first. It’s not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven’t got language, you can’t be conscious.” – Alan Moore
- “To learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world.” – Chinese Proverb
- “To have another language is to possess a second soul.” – Charlemagne
- “Language is to the mind more than light is to the eye.” – William Gibson
- “Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom.” – Roger Bacon
- “Language is wine upon the lips.” – Virginia Woolf
- “A man who knows two languages is worth two men.” ‒ French Proverb
- “Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
- A foreign language is like a frail, delicate muscle. If you do not use it, it weakens. – Jhumpa Lahiri
- “A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.” – Gaston Bachelard
- “One should not aim at being possible to understand but at being impossible to misunderstand.” – Marcus Fabius Quintilian
- “A mistake is to commit a misunderstanding.” – Bob Dylan
- “Language is not a genetic gift, it is a social gift. Learning a new language is becoming a member of the club – the community of speakers of that language.” – Frank Smith
- “I love commuting between languages just like I love commuting between cultures and cities. – Elif Safak
Learn a language, and you’ll avoid a war.” – Arab Proverb - “Do you know what a foreign accent is? It’s a sign of bravery.” – Amy Chua
- “Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.” – Benjamin Lee Whorf
- “Learning a new language is becoming a member of the club – the community of speakers of that language.” ‒ Frank Smith
- “Language is not a genetic gift, it is a social gift. Learning a new language is becoming a member of the club – the community of speakers of that language.” ‒ Frank Smith
- “I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.” – Samuel Johnson
- Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can; there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did. ‒ Sarah Caldwell
- “One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.” ― Frank Smith
- “You live a new life for every language you speak. If you know only one language, you live only once.” ― Czech proverb
- “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” ― Ludwig Wittgenstein
- “If I’m selling to you, I speak your language. If I’m buying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen.” ― Willy Brand
- “With languages, you are at home anywhere.” ― Edward De Waal
- “Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.” ― Rita Mae Brown
- “Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom.” ― Roger Bacon
- “If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.” ― Ludwig Wittgenstein
- “Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.” ― Oliver Wendell Holmes
- “To have another language is to possess a second soul.” ― Charlemagne
- “Any time you think some other language is strange, remember that yours is just as strange, you’re just used to it.” ― Anonymous
- “Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.” ― Flora Lewis
- “A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.” ― Cesar Chavez
- “Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides.” ― Rita Mae Brown
- “The man who does not know other languages, unless he is a man of genius, necessarily has deficiencies in his ideas.” ― Victor Hugo
- “The conquest of learning is achieved through the knowledge of languages.” ― Roger Bacon
- “One who speaks only one language is one person, but one who speaks two languages is two people.” ― Turkish Proverb
- “Language comes first. It’s not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven’t got language, you can’t be conscious.” ― Alan Moore
- “Language is not a genetic gift, it is a social gift. Learning a new language is becoming a member of the club-the community of speakers of that language.” ― Frank Smith
- “The more languages you know, the more you are human.” ― Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
- “Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Learning another language is like becoming another person.” ― Haruki Murakami
- I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.” ― Samuel Johnson
- “Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.” ― Benjamin Lee Whorf
- “If you know many languages then you have many keys for a castle.” ― François-Marie Arouet
- “Language is the dress of thought.” ― Samuel Johnson
- “Our language is also our history.” ― Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm
- “Two monologues do not make a dialogue.” ― Jeff Daly
- “We invent the world through language. The world occurs through language.” ― Mal Pancoast
- “No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.” ― Edward Sapir
- “It is astonishing how much enjoyment one can get out of a language that one understands imperfectly.” ― Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve
- “Learning a foreign language not only reveals how other societies think and feel, what they have experienced and value, and how they express themselves, it also provides a cultural mirror in which we can more clearly see our own society.” ― Chancellor Edward Lee Gorsuch
- “Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.” ― Dave Barry
- “Without translation, we would be living in the provinces bordering on silence.” ― George Steiner
- “We should learn languages because language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly.” ― Kató Lomb
- “Do you know what a foreign accent is? It’s a sign of bravery.” ― Amy Chua
- “To learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world.” ― Chinese Proverb
- “Absolutely nothing is so important for a nation’s culture as its language.” ― Wilhelm von Humboldt
- “I never found accents difficult, after learning languages.” ― Vivien Leigh
- “There is the fear, common to all English-only speakers, that the chief purpose of foreign languages is to make fun of us. Otherwise, you know, why not just come out and say it?” ― Barbara Ehrenreich
- “It is literally the case that learning languages makes you smarter. The neural networks in the brain strengthen as a result of language learning.” ― Michael Gove
- “It’s like there are all these languages available, especially in terms of image. Why confine yourself to only English? There’s all these languages and possibilities and concepts to speak or communicate with.” ― William Wiley
- “The more languages you know, the less likely you are to become a terrorist.” ― Upamanyu Chatterjee
- “When you grow up in a family of languages, you develop a kind of casual fluency, so that languages, though differently colored, all seem transparent to experience.” ― David Antin
- “No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby, so helpless and so ridiculous.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “The most intimate temper of a people, its deepest soul, is above all in its language.” ― Jules Michelet
- “Learn a language, and you’ll avoid a war.” ― Arab proverb
- “I love commuting between languages just like I love commuting between cultures and cities.” ― Elif Safak
- “Language is to the mind more than light is to the eye.” ― William Gibson
- “Learn a new language and get a new soul.” ― Czech proverb
- “Language is wine upon the lips.” ― Virginia Woolf
- “If you want people to understand you, you speak their language.” ― African Proverb
- “You are as many a person as languages you know.” ― Armenian Proverb
- “A foreign language is more easily learned in the kitchen than at school.” ― German Proverb
- “A man can be recognized by his language.” ― Jewish proverb
- “Old donkeys do not learn languages.” ― Portuguese Proverb
- “If you can speak three languages, you’re trilingual. If you can speak two languages, you’re bilingual. If you can speak only one language, you’re an American.” ― Anonymous
- “The joy of knowing a foreign language is inexpressible. I find it really difficult to express such joy in my mother tongue.” ― Munia Khan
- “If a language is corruptible, then a constitution written in that language is corruptible.” ― Robert Brault
- “Language is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery.” ― Mark Amidon
- “Learning a foreign language, and the culture that goes with it, is one of the most useful things we can do to broaden the empathy and imaginative sympathy and cultural outlook of children.” ― Michael Andrew Gove
- “Some translators turn an author’s words from gold to stone, others from stone to gold.” ― Terri Guillemets
- “Language reflects the soul of people.” ― Paul Schibler
- “Language and thinking. Language is the infrastructure in the land of thought.” ― Rainer Kohlmayer
- “Who wants to have an effect on others, must first speak in their language with them.” ― Kurt Tucholsky
- “Languages are not strangers to one another.” ― Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin
- “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” ― Eric Arthur Blair
- “Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.” ― William Butler Yeats
- “To handle a language skilfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.” ― Charles Baudelaire
- “The spirit of a language is most clearly expressed in its untranslatable words.” ― Baroness Marie ‘Freifrau’ von Ebner-Eschenbach
- “The whole art of language consists in being understood.” ― Confucius
- “With each language, you learn to free yourself from your trapped spirit.” ― Friedrich Rückert
- “With foreign words on our tongue comes also the foreign spirit into our world.” ― Carl Theodor Körner
- “Grammar is the breathing power for the life of language.” ― Munia Khan
- “Each time a language dies, another flame goes out, another sound goes silent.” ― Ariel Sabar
- “Language is best taught when it is being used to transmit messages, not when it is explicitly taught for conscious learning.” ― Stephen D. Krashen
- “Language is the archives of history.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.” ― Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- “One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland — and no other.” ― Emil Cioran
- “Language is the mother of thought, not it’s handmaiden.” ― Karl Kraus
- “Being able to read a book in another language is a source of ego-stroking pride” ― Emily O’Beirne
- “He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
- “Maybe then you comprehend, speaking one language only is a prison!” ― David Mitchell
- “One must not be shy where language is concerned.” ― Ann Patchett
- “I’m always impressed by people who can speak another language, two people talking what sounds like utter gibberish, yet making complete sense to each other never fails to entertain.” ― Tom Reynolds
- “Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.” ― Christopher Morley
- “Study a foreign language if you have opportunity to do so. You may never be called to a land where that language is spoken, but the study will have given you a better understanding of your own tongue or of another tongue you may be asked to acquire.” ― Gordon B. Hinckley
- “Playing golf is like learning a foreign language.” ― Henry Longhurst
- “What the survival of threatened languages means, perhaps, is the endurance of dozens, hundreds, thousands of subtly different notions of truth.” ― Mark Abley
- “A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- “We have strong evidence today that studying a foreign language has a ripple effect, helping to improve student performance in other subjects.” ― Richard Riley
- “First the language dies, then the culture.” ― Anonymous
