i know a couple of people that know a handful of languages to a high degree. They are also capable of listening to 2 people convo, find patterns in words being said and form their understanding of what words they are, sometimes referencing a language they know (like how french and spanish are very similar), this lets them talk to people albeit very broken in that language. This mc is just dumb, he should at least pick up on repeating words, but 0 effort at all.