Yup - the past simple almost always means "did X to completion, more or less". E.g. "ate dinner", "wrote a program", "invaded France", etc. Or "learned Spanis

Yup - the past simple almost always means "did X to completion, more or less". E.g. "ate dinner", "wrote a program", "invaded France", etc. Or "learned Spanish". Some verbs have indefinite scope in this regard, however - for example "study", which is similar to "learn" but more open-ended. So to say "I studied German" doesn't imply anything about how successful the ultimate outcome was. But to say "I learned German" definitely implies you became at least reasonably proficient at it.