Tuco, learning to read would be plausable in game, as for speaking you really need to be around the language to learn to do so. I know literally 100's of people here in China who can read and write VERY well but cant speak, just because they dont have anyone to practice with.
As for the above Chinese paragraph, its a chinese tongue twister presented in pinyin.
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For example if we were to make a Shadowrun style game you could use your electronics knowledge to build flashlights as a trade skill. You would have to buy bulbs, wire, batteries and a switch. If you got into more advanced design and wanted to build a stroble light for a club in the game you would need to learn a bit about resistors and capacitors. If players use the wrong parts the bulbs will fry or stuff blows up.
Higher level drops for say radar systems would require more knowledge for the player to learn. Players could contribute together and learn together to be the first faction with radar. Radar would be a huge advantage over the opposing faction so people would race for knowledge.
Maybe going higher, we want to build a warship, we would have to require several techs our faction has learnt to complete the blue prints.
It would just take a creative way to present the information and challenges in game to make sure it stays somewhat fun. In the end when a faction finally builds its first warship they would feel super proud. It might even make the paper... haha