I applaud your linguistic adventurism. Gaelic looks incredibly daunting, but as you say, Spanish will be a lot more useful.
I took 4 years of French in high school, and all my attempts to learn other languages since then have mostly just dredged up the remains of my French. Before traveling to Spain about 20 years ago I spent several months trying to learn Spanish online, with unimpressive results. But when we found ourselves unable to find an English language tour guide to the part of Spain we happened to be in at the time, I picked up a French version and was amazed to discover that I could pretty much read it!
I found that knowing some French both helps and massively interferes with learning Spanish. Yes, there are tons of familiar looking cognates, so it helps a lot with written Spanish, but I am completely unable to understand spoken Spanish. And I absolutely CANNOT bring myself to pronounce a final E without wincing.
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I took 4 years of French in high school, and all my attempts to learn other languages since then have mostly just dredged up the remains of my French. Before traveling to Spain about 20 years ago I spent several months trying to learn Spanish online, with unimpressive results. But when we found ourselves unable to find an English language tour guide to the part of Spain we happened to be in at the time, I picked up a French version and was amazed to discover that I could pretty much read it!
I found that knowing some French both helps and massively interferes with learning Spanish. Yes, there are tons of familiar looking cognates, so it helps a lot with written Spanish, but I am completely unable to understand spoken Spanish. And I absolutely CANNOT bring myself to pronounce a final E without wincing.