On the shoulders of giants

We tend to forget how easy it is to borrow an idea.

Because just by knowing a language, you can borrow just about anything.

Anyone can easily make a cake with a local, store-bought cake-mix. But making one from scratch while in a foreign land? That can be hard to do well.

Knowing the language gives you leverage, enabling you to borrow ideas and follow instructions without having to come up with them on your own.

Furthermore, compared to coming up with those ideas yourself, learning the language is relatively straightforward. While copying ideas once you can comfortably read tends to be a piece of cake.