Combinatorics of language learning

Let's say that your native language is a language other than English. Since English is the most widely spoken language, the market for learning materials for languages is probably biggest in English. 

I bet there are resources for learning Korean in Spanish, but I'm willing to bet they're not as plentiful as those for learning in English. Now, Spanish is a hugely spoken language, so I'm sure there's more than enough material out there, but how about starting from a smaller language? How many resources are available for learning Spanish in *Korean* (the opposite direction)? Probably still good enough, because Spanish is a big language. But I imagine more Koreans are trying to learn English than Spanish so there's less material. 

But how many resources are available for learning Amharic in Korean? Can you find an Amharic teacher who will teach you Amharic in Korean? Most languages have at least a million speakers, so it's possible, but I imagine harder to find than an Amharic teacher in English, or an Amharic textbook in English. 

What I'm getting at is an interesting thought I had whereby I think maybe a lot of folks have to learn English before learning another language, especially for that language is less widely spoken or very niche. It's almost like English is a stepping stone or a hub for jumping to one of these smaller languages? Because otherwise you have this crazy combinatoric issue where every language needs to be available to be taught every language. And this is obviously not the case for languages for small ethnic tribes, etc. I don't expect to find a Navajo teacher in Vietnamese, and I bet it's easier to learn Basque in Spanish than in Swahili.

 

Is this all true? I don't know; I'd love you to tell me! 

LLMs like ChatGPT, or good old fashioned Google Translate, can help this issue, I think, but of course there's so much more to learning a language such as speaking practice or cultural experiences, to name a few examples.