What level of understanding is required in "learning" for purposes of making a siyum?

Question

When learning as part of a coordinated group siyum, what level of understanding of the material is expected/required? How do you know if you've done enough to fulfill the mitzvah? Is it about effort expended, or about reaching a certain level of accomplishment (e.g. that you could pass some sort of test on the content)? How does somebody who is not already extremely learned (like, say, a ba'al t'shuvah), but who wants to help, know if his efforts will be useful?

This answer addresses learning in English rather than Aramaic and says it's more than just reading the words, which makes sense to me, but that doesn't actually say what level of proficiency one should be able to demonstrate.

Answer 1

At several siyums for my Daf Yomi group, I heard Rabbi Gedaliah Anemer tell a story involving Rav Moshe Feinstein, which he used to address the subject question.

Rabbi Anemer related that one of the Rav's students came from a non-yeshivish background. One day his father asked him to explain to him what it was they were learning in yeshiva. So, the son sat down to learn a page of Gemara with his father. When they completed an entire daf, the father told his son that he wanted to have a siyum. The son said "you can't have a siyum for just a single daf; you have a siyum for learning an entire mesechta of Gemara, but not a daf". The father told his son to ask Rav Moshe whether it could be done and, to the son's surprise, the Rav said that not only could it be done, he wanted to be invited. Soon thereafter the father died and Rav Moshe came to the funeral and told the story of the siyum, stating that by learning even a single daf of Gemara, the father had not only merited a siyum, he had earned a place in the World to Come.

When Rabbi Anemer told this story at siyums for the local daf yomi, he acknowledged that these men who work long days often fell asleep during the shiur, but nevertheless, they had earned a place in the World to Come because of their efforts to learn. Also, knowing that fact (that some of us lost consciousness during numerous sugyas), Rabbi Anemer still celebrated the siyumim with us all.

Answer 2

Expanding upon my answer from here:

I once wanted to learn a Masechta for the purpose of making a Siyum, and I learned it on mp3 and made a Siyum with the approval of a prominent Rav.

The primary objective, I believe, is to learn to the best of your ability. If you cannot understand a single word and you refuse to use "tricks" to make it easier to understand (eg., dictionaries, translated texts, etc.), then I would humbly suggest that you are wasting your time. If, however, you expended as much effort as you can reasonably be expected to put forth, given your resources and time constraints, I think it is fair to participate.

After all, we have a rule that if one misses the time for reading Shema', he (or she) still gains from reciting it on the basis of learning Torah (and, while I could be wrong, I don't think it means that the person needs to recite it with Rashi).