Just looking up everything in a zillion dictionaries is no guarantee that you'll understand the text. And memorizing Chinese characters is so painful. The same character means totally different things in different contexts. The way people think and express themselves is completely different than in the West.
「中文很難，尤其是文言文對我們西方人更是特別困難，就算查遍字典也不一定瞭解意思；背漢字更是痛苦，同樣的字用在不同的地方就有截然不同的含義，連思考模式和表達方式都和西方完全不同。