I think language is very important. Of course you can figure out some way to express just about any word in a foreign language in your native language.
However, a limited vocabulary limits one's thinking in the same way that writing everything in assembly will limit how and what you write despite the fact that everything can be written in assembly.
I'm always delighted to discover words (whether or not they're in my native language) that describe really useful concepts that I would have had to describe in much clunkier ways before. It allows me to reason about things involving those concepts much more clearly.
It's not really important that sometimes these useful words are discovered by studying other languages. I get the same benefit when I discover a useful word in my native language that I hadn't heard of before. I'm just more likely to find such words in other languages, because I've known English all my life and therefore am much more likely to already know what I would consider the most useful English words.
Eventually foreign words become useful enough that they get grandfathered into most English-speakers' vocabularies (zeitgeist, faux pas, deja vu, etc.). This happens with all languages of course, but English seems like more of an omnivorous mutt language than the others that I've tried to learn.
> However, a limited vocabulary limits one's thinking in the same way that writing everything in assembly will limit how and what you write despite the fact that everything can be written in assembly.
I'm not sure I would agree. You said it yourself: "despite the fact that everything can be written in assembly". It does limit your writing and speaking but good vocabulary is not a prerequisite for a good ability to think. People can think differently, some have more language oriented thinking, others visual, abstract or even logical etc, all depending on the areas you are working in.
However, a limited vocabulary limits one's thinking in the same way that writing everything in assembly will limit how and what you write despite the fact that everything can be written in assembly.
I'm always delighted to discover words (whether or not they're in my native language) that describe really useful concepts that I would have had to describe in much clunkier ways before. It allows me to reason about things involving those concepts much more clearly.
It's not really important that sometimes these useful words are discovered by studying other languages. I get the same benefit when I discover a useful word in my native language that I hadn't heard of before. I'm just more likely to find such words in other languages, because I've known English all my life and therefore am much more likely to already know what I would consider the most useful English words.
Eventually foreign words become useful enough that they get grandfathered into most English-speakers' vocabularies (zeitgeist, faux pas, deja vu, etc.). This happens with all languages of course, but English seems like more of an omnivorous mutt language than the others that I've tried to learn.