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An English man comes across a Chinese man.
The English man wonders whether the Chinese man understands English. So he begins questioning him.
"What is the colour of the sky?"
"Blue," answers the Chinese man.
One question right, thinks the English man. But he presses on. He asks more questions. Again and again, the Chinese man answers correctly.
Meta: How many questions must the English man ask before admitting that the Chinese man understands English?
The English man pauses to recover his breath.
The Chinese man takes this opportunity to ask a question of his own. He asks for the definition of a difficult English word.
The English man cannot answer. He reaches for his dictionary, looks it up, and confirms that the question was proper English.
Meta: Shall we conclude that the English man does not understand English?
The English man recollects himself. The Chinese man then reveals:
"I merely memorized a very large rulebook of English — a considerable billion of question-answer pairs, pre‑written."
Meta: Does the Chinese man understand English?
If not, what would define "understanding" English, then?