Shoot, Spanish was how I learned French. With a degree in Spanish and a need to acquire French, I mapped French words on a Spanish syntax and it worked. Yeah, it wasn't a perfect method but the gap was smaller between Spanish and French than my native English and French.

J'ai oublie tout mon Francais (or something like that -- I forget). Oddly, learning a second language (French) at an early age, while arguably helping me with Spanish -- far more necessary in the Greater Lawrence (MA) area -- has cause a weird phenomenon I call "Ingles Perdido." I first noticed it while trying to talk to a travel agent in Vladivostok several years ago.

From my diary jotted down later that night: "A curious mental deterioration gripped me. When failing to communicate in Russian, the ladies brought in a man who spoke German, which I don't speak. I started to wonder what the odds were that anybody spoke French here when suddenly I could only think of words in Spanish. Try as I might no other words would come to me. I sat there knowing no one would understand a word of it yet unable to think in any other language including English. With the language center of the brain switched to Spanish I sat and listened to Marge trying her German on the German-speaker who was about as uncomprehending as the ladies. Words floated around me making no sense at all. What was I doing here? Why did my brain think I could speak Spanish anyway?"