I didn’t speak English my early teenage years, and that haven’t stopped me from reading books about programming in my native language. I remember spending hours in bookshops, excited to pick up next book to devour and try out.
English alphabets came into my education at the age of 10. I got my first computer at the age of 21. I began speaking broken English around the age of 23. Proper internet at the age of 25 or so.
Not to mention, my native language doesn't have programming books, even today.
Of course, an avid reader and Science nerd here. Curiosity and tinkering never stopped.
In my country, english is hardly anyones first language, but its' mandatory in schools so I've never had the experience with having to find knowledge but its gate-kept behind a translation wall.
Absolutely, I understand what you're saying.
One of the things people miss out, in most of the discussions is that they think "if you were really serious, you would have figured it out". I agree with that in most instances but language and skill acquisition is a complex process as everyone knows.
English being the de-facto reservoir of programming knowledge and applications, it takes substantial amount of time and effort to cross the threshold of understanding and transference.
In any case, I'm an eternal optimist and I believe in action. It was a great experience listening to people's opinion here and I was kind of shocked to find that some of them are so siloed in their chambers, that's interesting nonetheless.