>Just try learning a foreign language by reading children's books
People often trot this strategy out like it's a good idea because children's books are "simple". Have you read children's books? The language in them is actually typically very weird and playful, the situations presented are often strange and non-sensical, and to that end they're not actually all that useful to a foreign language learner as a good starting point at all.
Perhaps. But, as evidence, I have a Chinese friend who bootstrapped his way to learn German when he became an exchange student in Germany, then, when he was doing his residency after graduating med school, he did the same with Spanish so he could treat his Hispanic patients in their language. He used children's books to kickstart, then graduated to advanced books, always with a dictionary at hand.
People often trot this strategy out like it's a good idea because children's books are "simple". Have you read children's books? The language in them is actually typically very weird and playful, the situations presented are often strange and non-sensical, and to that end they're not actually all that useful to a foreign language learner as a good starting point at all.