For example, a Spanish person will obviously have a much easier time learning Italian, compared to a Chinese person for example.
In general it's said that it is comparable easy to learn similar languages to the ones one knows already. In my own case, however, I noticed that I forgot nearly all my French since I started to learn Spanish! Because words often are so similar I always only remember Spanish words in case I try to speak French ... Actually, to be exact, I still understand French rather well, but just cannot speak it at all anymore (for example if anybody asks me in French to explain him the way, I am completely lost ... so annoying ...). :)
By the way, as you are still new, I suggest you to check the blog from @double-u from time to time. He opens his bar every Sunday, so that new Steemians can learn to know each other ... It is comparable to "Bei Hilde" in Politopia.
Thanks for the tip. Yea I made the same experience, that if you stop practicing regularly, you fall back continuously and I can imagine that it is easy to slip up between French and Spanish since they have many similar words, so it can be an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time. I noticed, since i started studying Turkish, that having studied Arabic before is a HUGE advantage, since you already have a big chunk of the same or similar vocabulary at your disposal....
Sorry for off-topic, but as I just saw you still haven't got the payment for your last article I would like to give you another small advice: if you check your wallet you will see the button "Redeem Rewards (Transfer To Balance)". Click on it, and the rewards will be transfered into your wallet. Part of your rewards will be "STEEM DOLLARS", the other part "STEEM". If you like your upvote to have more impact you may "Power Up" the STEEM ...
Read here for more information:
https://steemit.com/faq.html - and then there click on the title "What is the difference between STEEM, STEEM Power, and Steem Dollars?"
I think when two languages are too similar to each other (but not the same), it can cause problems when learning. I tried learning Portuguese after learning Spanish in HS. Big mistake. The two languages are so similar that I end up mixing them up when writing.
There were also situations when I thought I knew how to say something in Portuguese (because that's how it's said in Spanish and Portuguese has similar words), but it turned out that that phrasing isn't used at all.
Didn't think of it like that, I can imagine that it was a problem mixing those two languages up!