My elementary knowledge of Sanskrit (Class 5 to Class 8) helps me understand most religious texts (Ram Raksha Stotra & Vindhyavaasini Stotram etc.), different shlok's, epics, smriti's, commentaries on Vedic Richa's with moderate effort. Makes it easy for me to help my children understand the meaning of every single word, the overall shabdarth & overall essence.
However, I do face considerably more challenges with Shiv Tandav Storam, where just one word fills the entire line, or for that matter, Mahishasur Mardini. Try it, you will enjoy it.
In the past, when I was in Bangalore (truly multi-cultural, multi-lingual & cosmopolitan, the best and my fav. city in India), my fundamental understanding of Sanskrit helped me in understanding the context of conversations when my Marathi peers discussed something.... To some extent, same with Kannada & at times (rarely though) even for Tamil etc. as I find extensive usage of Sanskrit vocabulary there.
Just understanding the context of those conversations has helped me in broadening my horizons immensely. I was surprised to see how extensive is the usage of Sanskrit-origin words in these South India languages, whereas how infrequent this is becoming with our overly Persianized-Urdu-ized Hindi spken in North India (except Bihar & Eastern UP, maybe).
I am referring to modern Panini Sanskrit (with Parishkrit vyakran) which I have basic understanding of, not Vedic Sanskrit.
With Vedic Sanskrit - which is considered somewhat archaic & difficult to master without years of disciplined practice under a well-trained, experienced scholar -- I have to search for meanings of several "sandhi" -created words repeatedly. Rigvedic Sanskrit is no joke.
Not sure whether any of you had similar experience, I found Sanskrit to be