2 languages: what's more confusing?

If someone were to learn two languages (not necessarily at the same time, but within a relatively close timespan) which of these three would be most/least confusing to do?

1. Learning two languages which are very similar: German and Dutch are very similar, but just different enough to get confusing.

2. Learning two languages which have similarities: I'm having trouble thinking of good examples for this one... Maybe Italian and French or, further apart, Italian and Romanian; they're very different but obviously related with a high degree of overlap in vocabulary and grammar.

3. Learning two languages which are not related: Learning Irish and Turkish; they're not related in anyway and therefore may not be confusing if learning within a relatively short timespan.

So which situation would be most/least confusing for ya'll?

I would say door # 3, that way there's no cross confusion going on

I agree with guest-small "g"...

If you already know German at an intermediate level, I think you can move on to Dutch while continuing to study German.

French and Italian share a lot of vocabulary, but the sounds are so distinct that you shouldn't confuse them.

If you are decent in languages, you can probably choose several to study at a time (if you have at least ten or fifteen minutes a day for each one). It seems you are interested in languages, so that shouldn't be a problem.
Probably choosing the languages will be a greater issue for you.

I wonder why you choose Irish and Turkish for examples. That sounds like Prof. Arguelles out in California. Have you heard of him? I posted some videos he put on Youtube. Interesting guy. I think he likes Irish and suggests that would-be polyglots learn it.

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I wonder why you CHOSE...

I don't want to mislead English learners.

Prof. Argüelles is a genius. He's on another forum, but I only have the highest respect for him. He is the most methodical and systematic learner I have ever known.

Number 3. would be the least confusing for a total beginner. But number 1 and 2 are safe, provided that you know one of the languages well enough.

I chose Irish and Turkish at random. Japanese and French, Swahili and Hindi, Dutch and Maori... pick whichever example you like.

I already know a good deal of German, so I was thinking about adding Dutch (or even Swedish or Norwegian), but I was worried it may get confusing.

And my friend Lindsay is learning Polish and wants to learn either Russian or Hungarian along with it... She wants to learn Hungarian "some day" but figured she may be able to pick up Russian along with Polish.

I wonder about the Russian/Polish idea. I know of two Americans who studied Russian with a Polish teacher of Russian. This teacher (the pride of being Polish perhaps) decided to teach both languages to the students at the same time. It sounds unbelievable, but two of the students told me about this. One of them loved it and learned both languages to some extent for life. No brain drain/no confusion. The other student complained bitterly about this and didn't continue, but she ALSO remembered some of the vocabulary for life. She remembered...the Polish, not the Russian. Interesting. It was advertised as a Russian class.

I'd love to do a comparative languages course, but unfortunately I've never attended a school that offered one... Nor have I ever heard of one... One of my professors developed his own method for learning languages, and taught it in class; just a brief introduction to three languages (one every six weeks of the semester), and he recommended that we do languages that were unrelated so I did Irish, Japanese, and Russian.

That's actually quite interesting. I'd enjoy a class like that. Can you tell us anything about your teacher's method?

The method is called Sheltered Initiation Language Learning (SILL) and is meant to be self-paced and self-taught, hence how I was able to study Japanese, Irish, and Russian while other students in the same class studied Arabic, Thai, etc. Most students took languages they couldn't otherwise take. My experience with other students has been a love it/hate it relationship with the method... I liked it, although like most non-immersion or self-taught methods, you really only get out what you put in. Anyway, the professor's website is here: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/linguist/zevbar-lev.html and he has some information about it on there.

>>>1. Learning two languages which are very similar: German and Dutch are very similar, but just different enough to get confusing.

2. Learning two languages which have similarities: I'm having trouble thinking of good examples for this one... Maybe Italian and French or, further apart, Italian and Romanian; they're very different but obviously related with a high degree of overlap in vocabulary and grammar.

I can't really tell. Mandarin is formally my third language but I got fairly orally fluent (as commented by native speakers) after just listening to podcasts - from a site you may probably know - for months.

I think English plus French could be somewhat confusing when they share a lot of vocab but are syntactically quite different. Those of the same family aren't confusing in those ways. Despite regional usages (as diverse as World Englishes), recalling images all in written Chinese makes me speak Mandarin fairly fluent to natives/any Chinese. If you also consider oral interactions, again I find it less confusing for me to switch to Mandarin. By the same token, a French person would understand English even better than me at the same "level" because s/he must know much more Latinate words than I do.

Thanks, Skippy. I appreciate it.

"I wonder why you choose Irish and Turkish for examples. That sounds like Prof. Arguelles out in California. Have you heard of him? I posted some videos he put on Youtube. Interesting guy. I think he likes Irish and suggests that would-be polyglots learn it. "
Hi K.T.-さん
Man, that reminds me of an Irish textbook with tape that I bought in 1995. My fingers are eager to get that book again...
How about Basque? Has anyone ever tried it?

Ciao!