Is it true that if you are good in one of the European languages it means that you can learn another easily?

Question

I speak English very well , would that help me in learning italian or french for example?

Answer 1

Yes. English has a large amount of Latin based vocabulary which is a help when you are learning French, and all Indoeuropean languages have grammatical features in common. I can understand six european languages because the ones I know to varying degrees (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Greek and Albanian) have features in common that makes learning them easier than learning, say, Japanese, which I only know a little.

(English is a Germanic language with a HUGE amount of Romance vocabulary, especially in more formal style, and it will certainly help you with Spanish and French)

Answer 2

If you are good at one of the European languages that you have learned, i.e. not your native language, then learning another European language is easier. If you speak English well because it is your native language, then it will be of limited help, except for vocabulary. If you are a non-native Eng speaker, then you would find Dutch, German and the Scandinavian languages have a lot in common; similarly if you have learned French or Spanish, then Italian is much easier to learn, for example, as all are Romance languages.

Answer 3

Hum....yes, but's cuz european countries are relatively small and the traffic of ppl from everywhere is big too. Also, lot of europeans works outside their own country and their neighbors are often in contact. More, they have lot of languages but a same basis in them. From latin, u can learn french, spanish, portuguese and italian faster then others. From german, netherlandeese and english is easy to learn.
From slavian u learn servian, russian, latvian, lithuanian, ucranian and from viking u learn danish, norwegian, swedian...
It's not too much accurate, but u undestand =P
For ya, speaking english will help learning italian of french cuz english have some latin's influence and the grammar basis is simillar to these languages.
Also, if u live in Canada learning french should be easy for ya as long u have more contact with the speakers. After learning french, italian will be more easy to learn, good luck =)

Answer 4

There are five major euro languages : french, english, german, spanish and italian -

Considered separately they seem very different - considered as a whole by people who master three or four of them, it is evident that they have VERY MUCH in common - so please don't oppose latin languages to germanic languages - this is a very flat platitude, plus a good amount of discret racism - hidden under good sentiments -

The strong coherence which exists between big euro languages you can realize when you hear how difficult it is for eg japanese or chinese to learn one of them really well - and without going so far, consider how russians have it difficult to learn one of the 5 major western languages.

Answer 5

It is true,
but, I think it does not apply to native English speakers as most of them are really bad at learning other languages.(the reality is when you speak English you don't have to learn any other languages as English covers it all,but for other people it is other way around.if they can speak English in addition to their language,that would be an added advantage)
but, for Europeans, it is quite easy to learn English. for example Germans.they quite easily learn English.

Answer 6

depends on which language family, and whether the languages are related or not. If yes, then it's easier to learn. If not, then it's hard to learn the second when compared to the first.

Answer 7

English is a Germanic language with some Romantic vocabulary and grammar rules. It wont help you.

However, learning one Romantic language will help with other ones.

Answer 8

yup . I think so ...