In "How to be a hacker", Eric S. Raymond states it is necessary to have a functional knowledge of the English to be a good "hacker". I would think the same applies to being a good Perl programmer.

Apparently, no other language is as rich in technical terms as English.

He puts it much more eloquently here: http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#skills4

Welcome to the Monastery and good luck on your journey!