How much of French, German, Dutch, Spanish and other languages is included in the English language?

Answer 1

With English and the other languages you mention, there is quite a bit of overlap, with each to varying degree. The term "cognate" signifies words that are phonetically similar across languages, which is basically what you are talking about. Although I am not fluent the others, I can speak for Spanish, of which cognates constitute around 1/3 of its vocabulary. By knowing English--you already have a "head start" with 1/3 of the language!

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

English's closest linguistic relatives are German and French, deriving from the French's early occupation of the Germanic-Speaking Britons. As a result, English is a bit of a mongrel tongue with both languages highly apparent in the words and sounds of English. For example, anything ending in "ion" such as "transition" or "computation" is a cognate in many of the other Romance languages. But the German roots make themselves equally manifest too. "Hallo" is German and "Hello" is English. Usually if it's not a Romance cognate, it's a Germanic cognate. Hope this clarifies your question!