I tried to post a reply to Eu about "French" "German" and "Russian", but the Cyrillic came up as numerals for some reason.
I think your idea may have some validity, but actually it appears that you need four languages (because you already know some English) to manage in Europe, let's say, or read posts in this thread (and I haven't even touched on Asian languages).
French is a good language, but you really need TWO romance languages to unravel most of the others at 70% comprehension. Romanian is still a bit further afield.
If you know German and English well, you have a lot of Dutch already even if you don't know it. That said, while I can puzzle some things out in Swedish, I still find it a chore because I haven't studied it. Norwegian seems easier to me and with Norwegian, there is a lot of Danish, but truthfully, how much are you actually understanding of each "Germanic" language?
Russian. This is the king of Slavic languages. Poles and speakers of BHS have indicated that they understand a lot of it. Of course, people in Belarus and Ukraine also understand most Russian. Maybe they understand it, but will they reply in Russian? I've read that, like the romance languages, TWO Slavic languages are actually needed to fill in the blanks in the other languages.
How many Antimooners know French, Russian, English, and German?
That specific set of languages...
It may work for you, but without English, we get diminishing returns for replies.
Many people aren't able to participate unless we translate some of the posts.
I think your idea may have some validity, but actually it appears that you need four languages (because you already know some English) to manage in Europe, let's say, or read posts in this thread (and I haven't even touched on Asian languages).
French is a good language, but you really need TWO romance languages to unravel most of the others at 70% comprehension. Romanian is still a bit further afield.
If you know German and English well, you have a lot of Dutch already even if you don't know it. That said, while I can puzzle some things out in Swedish, I still find it a chore because I haven't studied it. Norwegian seems easier to me and with Norwegian, there is a lot of Danish, but truthfully, how much are you actually understanding of each "Germanic" language?
Russian. This is the king of Slavic languages. Poles and speakers of BHS have indicated that they understand a lot of it. Of course, people in Belarus and Ukraine also understand most Russian. Maybe they understand it, but will they reply in Russian? I've read that, like the romance languages, TWO Slavic languages are actually needed to fill in the blanks in the other languages.
How many Antimooners know French, Russian, English, and German?
That specific set of languages...
It may work for you, but without English, we get diminishing returns for replies.
Many people aren't able to participate unless we translate some of the posts.