Re: Ask the dog - it has an 80% success rate
Reading aloud can sometimes work when trying to make sense of documents in a foreign language. At one place I worked we occasionally got technical specs in Italian; we didn't need to fully understand them, just be able to tell if they were what the supplier had claimed. None of us in the team spoke Italian (and this was before Google translate, et.al. was available). We found that reading parts aloud in a mock/comic Italian accent actually made enough clear to know what we needed.
It's a bit like Greek. I know the Greek alphabet because almost every letter has been used in some technical/mathematical/scientific context. If you read a word aloud it often becomes understandable, when the written form was - just Greek! I found the same with Cyrillic, once you know how to sound the letters. Most European languages come from the same stems and, whilst you could never use this technique in conversation, it's often been useful. Of course, if you only speak English, you have the advantage that almost everyone else you're likely to meet (in the business or technical world) will also speak it. Not an excuse for not trying to learn some of the local languages when visiting...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
