Oh memories. It was not just about English - even if you knew what to do, you had to use the exact phrase game creators intended.

It could become very frustrating, especially as in those days you couldn't just go to web and find the walkthrough.

I remember being stuck on the top of volcano in Larry 2, trying to create a bomb to get inside:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QQRuRiPp6I#t=50s

Sometimes, the only option was to search through the game resource files, looking for strings that could be used.