Abstract
Adults' success in learning English - measured by TOEFL scores - is regressed as a function of GNP per capita (proxying instructional efforts); share of foreign trade in GNP (proxying everyday exposure to English); percentage of speakers taking the TOEFL (for comparability of populations); and the diachronic relatedness of English to one's native language, indicated by the Indoeuropean language tree. All four regressors are significant. The relatedness variable affords, for the first time, statistical evidence that difficulty in second language learning is not intrinsic to the target language, but relative - a function of the historical relatedness of the target and native languages.
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