The slavic root words are pretty uniform, but Latin, Germanic and Hungarian roots creep in as you get further West in Europe. The real issue is identifying the prefixes and suffixes that determine the part part of speech and grammar of the word. Polish is very understandable, Chech was harder to follow. Serb dialect is essentially old Slavic and easier to follow. Croatian tends to have Latin and Hungarian influences in some word choices. All Croations understand the Serb dialect and Serbs all understand the Croat dialect and may use either word choices in conversation, but they don’t like to admit it. Serbo Croation uses a locative prefix that is almost never used in Russian. They use the prefix “ooh” which translates roughly to “at” or “to.” Russian uses ve (in) or nah (on) for almost all locative case destinations or descriptions. The Russians also us “aht” (off of) or “eez” (out of) for departures or removal from places. To ask a Russian where they are from I would ask “Aht soodah vwee”. Yet Russian uses “ooh vrachah” for the locative portion of going to the doctor. It seemed to have use as an alternate way to express when a person, rather than a place was the destination. But “ooh” as a verb prefix implies a perfective final departure. To exist “to be” is a shared root word “beet” and to express that someone has died the verb is “oohbeel” past perfective to have ceased to exist.
Your observation of the linkage between the Latin based languages is a good comparative to the similarity of the Slavic languages. You would also be able to understand a lot of Romanian, as it is a Latin based language. And of course English is a Germanic rooted language. Hungarian and Finnish are actually related, with their ancestors apparently having a common origin on the Russian steeps.
I was getting pretty good at Mexican style Spanish in Texas in the late seventies into the eighties, but it seems to be almost completely gone now. I know it’s still in there though, as things come back to me from time to time.
Hungarian and Finnish are both Finno Ugric languages (as opposed to Indo European) but are not mutually intelligible. Finnish and Estonian are much closer, a Finn and an Estonian can understand one another.
Finno Ugric languages trace their roots to the Urals. Other languages in this family of languages include Sami, Karelian, Mari, Samoyed, and Nenets.
Fun fact: Putin is Mari.
Few people are truly bilingual unless they were brought up in two languages. But fluency is a different story. I was fluent in Spanish and I was an exchange student to Mexico City in 1965, where I also took Spanish classes at the American Embassy. Later, I learned French and was conversant with my colleagues in France and Belgium. Alas, if you don’t use it you lose it. My Flemish girlfriend was fluent in Dutch, Germain, English, and French. It was interesting being an American for four years overseas in those days.
Good point.
It is a revelation to live overseas on your own for several years with no Americans around.
Your point about being fluent vs bi-lingual is a good one.
I’m bi-lingual by that standard but I think that actually made me a bit weaker in both languages.
Good on you But, yeah, over the years it can recede. Like calculus.
I presented a paper relating to my research in Luxembourg. I fielded questions in French, but answered in English. I understood French, but didn’t trust my ability to respond.
Sounds a little like conversations I have with my daughter.
Now that is something else. Sounds fun and good luck.
As chance would have it, I married a girl from the old country. My daughter grew up with two languages but she just isn’t comfortable with her language abilities, too bad actually.
Give it time. Hope things turn out alright.
She just turned 30. But it’ll be fine.
She’s a young grasshopper. I agree! Best to you guys.
intermediate spanish
fascinated by the latino culture
