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If you want to truly understand China, do you need to be able to speak Chinese?
- mytailorisrich 6y agoIt's always difficult to understand a culture without speaking the language. Obviously not speaking the language shields you from most of the information produced by that culture, but a language also carries a lot of cultural information and learning a language means learning a culture. I don't think anyone can call themselves "expert" on a foreign country if they are not fluent in the language.
- iansinnott 6y agoEven if not necessarily causal, learning a foreign language signals a relatively high level of investment in learning about the people/nation(s) that natively speak the language. So I suspect there's at least some correlation between language and cultural understanding.