Which do you think would be more important when going to a new place: being able to understand and speak the language like a native, knowing the customs and practices of the place, or understanding the streets like somebody who has lived there for decades?
edit: as somebody described it, it’s language vs customs vs lay of the land
Language, easily.
Google maps already lets me navigate almost like a local.
A quick search on the most important customs would cover that fairly quickly, plus a lot is likely to be overlooked because I’m a foreigner.
But language, it takes years to learn a language properly, and even then it’s not native level. Knowing the customs and streets is pointless if you can’t communicate, and google translate is not going to be that much help in a real conversation.