The role of background knowledge
There is one question that I want to put forward before I answer this.Why do you learn English?Or what’s the purpose for you to learn English?
No matter what kind of reason do you have,I think there is one reason is very common for all of us.That is so called communication.
Because we need to communicate with other people,so in order to make them understand us,we should first know the history of their language,such as the origin,the development and so on.Set the humor as an example,I think most of us have the experience that we always feel confused about the joke in English,while the native speakers were laughing happily.Owing to the different cultural background,we can’t understand the meaning completely.
So learning the background knowledge can give us a better understanding about the language,the people,and even their culture.