 I found it difficult enough to learn how to navigate in the US where the maps were in English. I was even more befuddled as a very young boy by maps in French, Dutch, or Italian. And the colonel was not amused when I lost my place on those maps. Maps have been around a long time. The Chinese were drawing them back as far as 128 BC on stone, wood, silk, and paper. The Chinese were big explorers back then. But as China grew more insular, their maps lost their currency. I mean, they weren't out there looking around.