[guardiangod]

>Are you saying that Chinese writing relies on a semantic component

I am saying _advance_ Chinese writing has a significant semantic component, but most speakers are not knowledgeable enough to realize it.

>That does not sound very useful, especially when it comes to literacy.

Most people can speak English; You probably need an advance English degree to understand all the puns/word plays in Shakespeare's works (or use Cole's Notes.)

The flexible of a language's intricate details has no direct relationship with the literacy of its speakers(or how easy to become proficient at an language to the point where one can communicate compound ideas with it.)

Back to how useful all these are- not really if you stick with the basic. They are as useful as Shakespeare's or Wordsworth's works in the modern world. You could speak/communicate perfectly fine in English even if you are not able to understand advance details of English literature, especially the vocab side.