Learning a foreign language wasn't an easy thing. At that time it was especially important to know foreign languages. Some people learned languages because they needed them for their work, others traveled abroad, for the third studying foreign languages was a hobby. Everyone, who knew foreign languages could speak to people from other countries, read foreign authors in the original, which made your outlook wider. I studied English. It was a long and slow process that took a lot of time and efforts. Over 300 million people spoke it as a mother tongue.
Goofy is a dog, isn't he?