Farsi and Arabic are not even remotely related, so I don’t think that is the right thing to say as an example. Also, Farsi, like English, is Indo-European. Arabic is Semitic. So if anything, Farsi and English are much closer to each other than Arabic and either of them.
Languages from groups right next to each other do not have to be related at all. Finnish and Swedish were mentioned above. Swedish is Indo-European, Finnish is Uralic.
They use similar alphabets and have a lot of vocabulary in common, so many Arabic speakers find it pretty easy to learn, ime, though that doesn’t work the other way.
There is a greater linguistic distance between English and Arabic than between Farsi and Arabic, even though Farsi and English have a shorter linguistic distance between themselves than either does with Arabic.
Similarly, Finns probably have an easier time learning Swedish than they do Spanish even though Swedish and Finnish are from different language families, just because a lot of vocabulary will be similar. Estonian would probably be even easier for Finnish speakers because of common vocabulary and a shared language family.
Farsi and Arabic are not even remotely related, so I don’t think that is the right thing to say as an example. Also, Farsi, like English, is Indo-European. Arabic is Semitic. So if anything, Farsi and English are much closer to each other than Arabic and either of them.
Languages from groups right next to each other do not have to be related at all. Finnish and Swedish were mentioned above. Swedish is Indo-European, Finnish is Uralic.
They use similar alphabets and have a lot of vocabulary in common, so many Arabic speakers find it pretty easy to learn, ime, though that doesn’t work the other way.
There is a greater linguistic distance between English and Arabic than between Farsi and Arabic, even though Farsi and English have a shorter linguistic distance between themselves than either does with Arabic.
Similarly, Finns probably have an easier time learning Swedish than they do Spanish even though Swedish and Finnish are from different language families, just because a lot of vocabulary will be similar. Estonian would probably be even easier for Finnish speakers because of common vocabulary and a shared language family.