Comment by numpad0

GP is making understandable misunderstanding due to how the three Far East countries are presented in the world at large, that there are three countries in Asia that practically touches each others, just like Germany is with Belgium and Netherlands in Europe.

Tokyo from Beijing(2000km/1200mi) is about as far out as Paris to Kyiv. Far East countries are also separated by seas, like Mediterranean countries across the sea. I doubt a lot of Parisians have meaningful ideas of "basically Latin" Ukrainian any way or form, or Italians with Tunisian, but there's such false instinct that forms out of above-mentioned presentation that those Asians are rather next door neighbors.

That and mistaking personal difficulties and inefficiencies associated with understanding languages in non-native manners as inferiority of the foreign one.