A language does not stand in isolation, it is inextricably linked with culture, mentality, history and miieu; and its literature reflects that. Its evolution links it with the history of other languages. I am an Englishman and my country has witnessed numerous migrations to and from these shores. Our Anglo-Saxon roots mean that for me German was a comparatively easy language to learn. Yet the Roman and Norman Conquests, together with the Roman Catholic Church, brought much Latin into our language and through the Normans, a form of French. I began both languages when I was 8. Ancient Greek proved more of a challenge and recently Russian seems very difficult. What are your experiences of mastering other languages and how much has that been determined by your own native language?
It depends on what your mother tongue is... My native language is Hungarian, which isn't really similar to any other language in the neighbourhood, just some smaller ones in Northern Europe, but they are too far to be of any help. Therefore it's harder for an average Hungarian to learn a foreign language, except for those who can learn languages easily anyway. As a child I learnt Romanian at school, which makes learning Spanish, French and especially Italian much easier. I think that if someone's mother tongue is a language which is similar to another one, the new language is easier to learn, words are easier to remember. There may be differences in the grammar, but they still have an advantage over those whose mother tongue isn't really similar to any other language.
Michael, the answer is too obvious, when you speak about <em>literary</em> Russian (and somewhat less obvious with Ancient Greek. I guess, especially Homer's language:/).
Russian, as it is spoken in few distant villages unaffected by school. TV and contacts with the outer world, is probably yet another story, which I don't know:/
There is a simple way to measure it: google-translate a Russian text and Chinese one. And compare readability.
(Alas, those who aren't familiar with English can't repeat this trick: GT would, most probably, start from translation from Korean/Vietnamese to English and only then to Chinese:( And vice versa.)
My native tongue is Russian. I can speak German and English. Knowing German and English I understand Dutch (to my surprise, especially the news on TV).
When I was a first year student I learnt Latin and I understand easy texts in Italian, French and Spanish now.
Last summer I bought a Polish textbook and read it, I cannot speak Polish but I understand it (the spoken Polish is more understandable than the written one for me) and I can understand other Slavic languages a little now (Russian is a Slavic language as well).
