/lit/ - Literature

>>23151549
They were fluent, but to a shallow level.

In the past, European nations had their own unique cultural spheres, unique ideas, concepts, histories, etc. You can read Goethe in English and you'll get a shallow picture of Goethe. Or you can learn German, and get a slightly deeper picture of Goethe. But to get a truly full picture of any author, you must study the time period in which they lived, who they communicated with, what they believed, and so on. Learning German or French or Japanese will not take you to this level of understanding, but it is necessary to learn these languages to truly understand Germany or France or Japan.

Likewise, if your learning of the language is not accompanied by deeper study of the relevant culture, you're going to hit a ton of bottlenecks as you keep reading and ideas/people/jokes/events come up that you don't understand.