Similar (was: 'useful') languages

Clint Jackson Baker wrote:
>>>
[...] I'm better at
French, but I think that's because I've known it so
much longer, and French and Spanish are similar enough
that when I try to speak Spanish I tend to pidgin the
two (easy for an English speaker, who has more vocab
in common with French than with Spanish).
<<<

Is this a common problem?  I had a similar experience a couple of years ago,
when I was learning Swedish.  I've had semi-reasonable German since I
learned it in school at fourteen (so twelve years ago), and although I was
conscious of the similarities between Ger. and Sw. while I was learning the
latter, I wasn't aware that they could interfere with each other until I
tried speaking German just after a Swedish lesson.  Result: acute total
German-aphasia.  Two years on, I can once again speak decent German, but
only as long as I don't think about Swedish at the same time!

Has anyone else come across this phenomenon?

Jonathan.

'O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages...'
W. H. Auden, 'Hymn to St. Cecilia'

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