Question

He who knows no foreign language does not know his own one
Как вы понимаете смысл этого высказывания? Сразу говорю, мне не нужен перевод, хотелось бы услышать мысли на счёт цитаты Гёте (можно и на русском)

Answer 1

This quote is usually found in the forewords of foreign language textbooks,

the authors want to convince students that learning languages is beneficial.

Based on this, the meaning of Goethe's paradox is as follows:

if you want to really know your own language - learn a foreign one.

But since this is a maxim (Latin maxima is the greatest) - a rule brought to the absolute, “to know your language superficially” is replaced by “not to know anything about it” in an expanded, not literal, meaning.

No one suspected Socrates of ignorance, who declared: "I know that I know nothing.