> I have found that English is a bit weird in that you need obsessively high absorption of like, culture, to execute well I'd think that English is not unique

> I have found that English is a bit weird in that you need obsessively high absorption of like, culture, to execute well I'd think that English is not unique there. To speak Chinese at the level of an educated native, I'd say you have learn not only the language, but also the country's history, and have some familiarity with canonical Chinese texts such as the "Four Books and Five Classics" (Confucius, Mencius, etc.), "The Dream of the Red Chamber", etc., to understand idioms such as "四面楚歌" (four sides of Chu song = facing insurmountable difficulty, defeat [1]). As another example, Hong Kong has its own lingo (a variety of Cantonese) that evolves so rapidly that HK people that have been abroad a few years tell me that they note that the language has evolved and shifted when they come back. I'm fairly certain that it is easy to spot non-native speakers in many languages, maybe even easier than in English. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/四面楚歌 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/四面楚歌