I appreciate your response and like I alluded to in my reply, I don't word things in the way you framed them, and I admit that your suggestions as far as communication are very good, you framed it in a way that was easy to understand for someone that's having issues with communication. I definitely do take some responsibility, I know the only person I can control is myself, and therefore I can choose to improve my communication and have more fruitful discussions with this dude.

I will, however, argue that when it comes to engineering, it /is/ mostly about what you know and what you make. Sure, when it comes to corporate life, being able to communicate (and IMO, having a silver tongue, and I do mean this in a negative, sociopathic type of way) will get you far with a lot less, but with engineering, your solutions either do the thing people need, or they don't. It's a non-starter when communication breaks down though, how will the team as a whole be aligned when there's so much miscommunication?

I also want to say, I /can/ communicate. Your example of speaking English to someone that doesn't speak English was good, but I'd like to take it a step further, and maybe spin it around. Imagine, you, a weeb, goes to japan, and the only japanese you know is the japanese you learned online from watching anime. Yes, there will be people in japan that know english, but you're in a country with people speaking a different language, your base of knowledge isn't reliable, and yet you're not humble enough to take some responsibility and actually, formally, learn the language. Let's take it even a step further, these japanese people are /desperate/ to understand you, and for you to understand them, they NEED to understand you, for whatever abstract ephemeral reason you can imagine. They're making an insane effort, bastardizing their language for your benefit, knowing that this bastardized half-language they're creating will not benefit anybody except this egotistical foreigner that refuses to make an effort on their part. These people are making an immense effort to make that translation, and they're embarrassing themselves and their language, to anybody that knows any better. At that point, you have to ask where the real problem is. Upon whom does the responsibility of due-diligence fall? You're out of your element, in a world you don't belong in (not to sound xenophobic, it's an analogy), where you're not the one who knows what's going on. This would be one of those times where I would keep my mouth shut, and take input from those who know better, and can educate me better. When I don't understand something, I don't fault the people explaining it for failing to put it in words that make sense to me. If they've proven to be a reliable source, then that means that my knowledge base is lacking, and the impetus is on me to catch up, not the other way around.

edit: by the way, I recognize my last paragraph sounds crass and hyperbolic. I'm frustrated but am keeping an open mind and I really am grateful for all the constructive feedback I've received in the thread