Learning to read

is not easy. Learning to read English if your first language is Chinese is not easy either.
The Senior Cat has now reached the time in his life where he needs some help to shower. I could do this and I have done it on occasion but he is eligible for the subsidised service and, after consideration, we decided to take advantage of it on safety grounds. Thus S.... arrives and helps.
S.... is Chinese. Her  husband lectures at the university so we assume his English is excellent. Hers is fair - but she can also speak fluent German. This last time she arrived and announced, "I have come for my English lesson." 
We laughed but I know what she meant. When she cannot find the right word in English I will give it to her. She will repeat it and use it again. Sometimes she gets me to spell it and she will write it down. I will correct her grammar and construction too. Her English has improved greatly over the twelve months she has been coming to us. 
For the Chinese Lunar New Year she showed us a picture of something her family had bought in our local Chinatown shopping area. It featured a knot. This was a fairly simple knot but Chinese knotwork can be very complex and very beautiful. I know a little about it  and have two books on the subject. I brought them out and showed S... Could she borrow one? Of course. I have used them in the way I intended and no longer need them.
And so she had taken the book home with her.
The books are written in English of course. Although I can recognise a few characters I don't read Chinese. 
And I have been reminded yet again that reading instructions in a second language is even harder than simply reading straightforward information. S.... has asked me for help with phrases like "pass it through underneath". How can something be "through" and "underneath"?  
At university I taught more than one Chinese and Japanese student to read a knitting pattern in English. All those abbreviations I could read automatically had to be explained one by one.  The modern Japanese way of writing a pattern has much to commend it. I can actually struggle through one of those but, like S... with the knot, it would always be good to have someone who could help.
When someone who knits questions why we are so willing to help S.... with her English - and they often do - then I think I might ask them if they can read a pattern in Japanese. 
I think the answer will almost certainly be no.