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From a linguistic perspective, languages being geneologically close to each other does not imply a degree of mutual intelligibility. Dutch and English are close
by gnulinux 9y ago
From a linguistic perspective, languages being geneologically close to each other does not imply a degree of mutual intelligibility. Dutch and English are close, closer than German and English. But it is possible that English speakers end up learning Spanish easier. Why? Languages are really complex structures, sometimes they don't reason.
- hellofunk 9y agoI think the reason Americans are morely likely to learn Spanish easier is simply because of the huge and relatively recent influence of widespread Spanish all over the States, thanks to proximity to Mexico. Most Americans are already familiar (to varying degrees) with Spanish whether they intend to be or not. I bet if you gave a native English speaker exposure to Dutch in the same way, they'd be much closer to actually speaking it than with the same exposure to Spanish. If you hear a Dutch person say "the water is warm," or "the cat sat on the mat", or "if I can," or many other simple sentences and phrases, the unassuming listener might think they are speaking English as the sentences are nearly identical.