Quote Originally Posted by Оля
Actually I don't agree with it. For example, Latin can help if one learns Italian, Spanish or French; Italian can help if one learn French or Spanish; Russian can help if one learn Polish; English helps if one learn German; etc.
This is not what I meant since here you specifically name different languages which each one of them are part of a specific group of languages with a commun language origin. Of course it may help to understand the words themselves because of their etymology and certain syntactic similarities.
Even so, you still have to learn all the rules and how the language works to write correct sentences.

Why didn't you say Russian can help if you learn Italian or Spanish can help if you learn Dutch and vice versa. Probably because they don't have much in commun and won't help. Don't you agree with me.