[sayrer]

It's helpful in learning nearby languages. I am a native English speaker, and my French can approach fluency given some immersion (it's pretty rusty right now, though). DuoLingo helped me improve transactional Spanish and Portuguese (BR) very quickly, meaning I can get through airports, grocery stores, restaurants, and read news articles. I'll need something more to have free-ranging conversations or read novels, though.

[aix1]

Check out "The Loom of Language: An Approach to the Mastery of Many Languages" by Frederick Bodmer. I'm reading it now and it's quite extraordinary. It seems like a particularly good fit for someone with your linguistic background, especially if you have an interest in learning further Germanic or Romance languages.