It doesn’t require any understanding on the part of the person or object you’re talking to. I’ve had people come up to me, start explaining something and, before I can even ask any questions, they stop and say “never mind, I just realized what’s wrong”. This sometimes happens before I have a clue what they’re talking about.
Granted, there’s a psychological benefit in your belief that they understand. You’d probably feel kind of foolish trying to explain a problem with a regular expression to a janitor. I suppose if there’s no one around who would understand and you can’t see yourself talking to a rubber duck (I’m not sure that would work for me) you can try typing out the question with the intent of posting it someplace like stackoverflow or even on Straighdope.