I think most advice to "learn C" really aims to get you to learn how things work closer to the metal. What actually becomes of your code and data, broadly speak

I think most advice to "learn C" really aims to get you to learn how things work closer to the metal. What actually becomes of your code and data, broadly speaking, once your high-level language's interpreter or compiler have had their way with them. So things like: - viewing primitive objects, structs and arrays as blobs of bytes arranged between address X and address Y - a pointer as an address of that blob. Understanding what it means to copy that blob vs. to pass around the pointer: calling by value/reference not in terms of the semantic effect, but in terms of what happens underneath. - the stack and how it's typically used, esp. in recursion. Local vars vs. heap-allocated vars. How control flow leaves its trace on the stack. How arguments are passed and return values are returned. - complex data objects viewed as blobs of memory pointing to each other vs. pointers. Concept of "owning" such a blob and how ownership is passed. Understanding how your language's runtime keeps track of the blobs if you don't have to, and what are common pitfalls. - clear understanding of the difference between int8, int32, int64. Strings as null-terminated or counted arrays. Bitops. "Learn C" is just a useful way to force you to internalize all of the above, because you can't properly "learn C" without doing that. But it's the above that helps you back in your favorite language. That, and perhaps the fact that C gives you a feeling what it's like when you can look at a line of source code and understand immediately what happens in the machine (broadly) when executing it. No hidden effects. C++ doesn't have that (constructors you don't know about when looking at the line, exceptions etc.) That "local clarity" isn't the most important thing in the world, but if you feel and appreciate it, perhaps you'll strive for local clarity back in your favorite language, too.