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Comment by NicoJuicy | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone has some experience with this, i speak Dutch, German, English (Germanic languages) and French (Latin language).

I suppose it would be easier for me to learn Spanish or another language. But would it also help me to learn Mandarin?

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Similarity in European languages helps. I speak Portuguese natively. It means Spanish is very easy and Italian a bit more difficult, but can be both picked up "by ear" just listening to TV shows. French is the first latin language that really required formal teaching to learn. English is taught at school from an early age, so while I recognize I'd never pick it up autonomously, it is now in the area of "easy languages".

Mandarin is probably so far from European languages that I can't even identify the expected learning roadblocks.

P.S: kudos on speaking Dutch. Amazingly difficult language. Tough pronunciation, strange grammar (for us coming from non-germanic languages at least).

I learned a few languages in school: French, Afrikaans, Xhosa, South Sotho. Been learning Mandarin on my own over the past year (using Pimsleur).

The main difference is the tonal system, reading it it sounds easy, but training your ear to pick it up takes time. It's hard to follow an audio when you're not picking up the nuances of the tones in context.

The language structure is kinda logical, so far. I haven't reached tenses or multiple clauses yet.

I found some pronunciation similar to French, for me ren (Zh: people) is similar sounding to rien (Fr: nothing)

You probably learned a bit of the Germanic and Latin languages from a youngish age and many of it at school and over many years. It would help you to try learning some Mandarin just to realise how hard it is to learn for a very long list of reasons.

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