Latin languages

If you are english or german or perhaps polish and you know one of the latin (or romance) languages, you certainly can easy learn the other languages of the same family. I'm italian and I know that my language is very rich of words, even to say the same thing. And this is an advantage for me to learn french or spanish or portuguese (about rumanian I just can say that it's a little bit harder to learn because of its strong slavic influences. Rumanian is something apart between the romance languages). So, as italian, I can say it is easy to read a spanish or portuguese or french newspaper understanding the most part of words and phrases. The same experience could have a russian reading in ukrainian or polish, a german reading in dutch or english, a danish reading in norwegian or swedish. But I really don't know how much could be possible the same experience for an englishman. English is certainly a german language but it is also something of unique because it keeps strong 'norman - french roots', and that's the reason why of its uncomparable success all over the world.
Anyway if you know italian language first, be sure you can easy start to read and learn spanish or french or portuguese. Modern italian have inside a strong influence from french and spanish: France and Spain have been the two great latin nations which dominate the peninsula for centuries. Austrian Empire too dominated in the north of Italy but german influence have been less strong.
Pronunciation is another question. Pronunciation is a successive step to do keeping calm and cool ! As italian mother tongue I know I have an advantage because of my rich dictionary: in italian you find the word 'formaggio' (french fromage) but also the term 'cacio' (lat. caseum, eng. cheese, ger. kaese, spa. queso, por. quéjo) to say the same thing. And this is just one of hundred examples I could write here! I thing that only this example could explain better than hundred and hundred words.
Ettore Tangorra    2014