The way I see it, if one understands another language, it’s because of similarities in syntax, grammar, etymology or what not. But a similarity is by definition bidirectional, is it not? Is the idea that some languages understand other better than they are themselves understood a lie?
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The ability for separate languages to be understood is called “mutual intelligibility,” and when one language understands the other more, it’s called “asymmetric intelligibility.”
This can happen because one language might have formed from another. Afrikaans is sort of a simplified Dutch, or at least started that way. Dutch speakers have an easier time understanding Afrikaans than vice versa because Dutch has all the same rules as Afrikaans *plus more*.
To use another, hypothetical example: let’s say language A and language B are similar and have a lot of overlap, but language A has a mix of gendered nouns (like in Spanish, French, etc) and non gendered nouns (like in English). Language B only has gendered nouns. Language A speakers will have an easier time understanding language B because they have the concepts of gendered nouns already, but language B won’t understand the non gendered parts of language A.
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