I 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 o

I 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.