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Discussion on: Discuss: Favorite Non-Tech Hobby / Activity

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Rob Hoelz

Yes and no - for example, the shared lineage of Dutch and German gets really confusing, because sometimes I'll think the word is similar in both languages when it's not (good examples are "time" - Dutch tijd and German Zeit, or "work" - Dutch werk and German Arbeit), or something I'll think they're different, but they're actually similar (for example, Dutch wonen and German wohnen are both "to reside"). And then you have false friends like winkel - which is store/shop in Dutch and angle in German.

You end up picking up a lot about grammar along the way - learning German helped me to understand indirect objects in a way English doesn't really help with, and it helped me understand grammatical case, which helps with Russian a lot. Of course, when you look at Chinese, you can throw all of that out the window! What knowledge did transfer there was learning about the International Phonetic Alphabet and how our vocal tracts work - knowing that makes it a lot easier to figure out new sounds!