Just knowing English you can understand most of French. Or even Spanish really. So many cognates.
Compare it to a distant language like Chinese where there is only like 12 cognates.
Pizza = pee za
Hamburger = Ham baow
Mango = mang gou
Shaman = Sa mon
only a hand full more.
Most of French... No, some yes.
You cannot get by in France without knowing French. How ever italians and Spanish often simply speak each others language and get by 100%, it's wh they vacation in the same spots.
I'm trying to say the difference manifest after like a year of study.
Once an English man studies French (or spanish) for 1 year it will be fairly easy to get by.
He automatically gains comprehension of something like 60 percent of the nouns.
Once he has a feel for how the language works.
Study Chinese or Japanese for one year and then see how much you understand.
Basically nothing.
