That is very true. I took two years of Spanish in High School, and quickly realized that Spanish opened the door for me to understand a bit of French, a little more latin, a bit of Italian, etc. From there, I learned a bit of german, and a bit of Russian. At the very least, I can ask where the bathroom is in 5 languages and then I can ask for a coke. lol.
For instance Donde is el Bano?
Où se trouvent les toilettes?
Dov'è il bagno
Ubi est latrina
Wo ist die Toilette
It's not always easy to translate, but you can eventually work it out.
I would say French could be the next best choice since not only those English derive a quarter of its words from it, its grammar is similar enough to English that it is not too hard to learn but different enough that it makes a gentle introduction to how odd the grammars of most languages can be.
That is very true. I took two years of Spanish in High School, and quickly realized that Spanish opened the door for me to understand a bit of French, a little more latin, a bit of Italian, etc. From there, I learned a bit of german, and a bit of Russian. At the very least, I can ask where the bathroom is in 5 languages and then I can ask for a coke. lol.
For instance Donde is el Bano?
Où se trouvent les toilettes?
Dov'è il bagno
Ubi est latrina
Wo ist die Toilette
It's not always easy to translate, but you can eventually work it out.
I would say French could be the next best choice since not only those English derive a quarter of its words from it, its grammar is similar enough to English that it is not too hard to learn but different enough that it makes a gentle introduction to how odd the grammars of most languages can be.