Learning Slovak I can see the similarities with Latin...
Reminds me of a story that my German teacher used to tell. IIRC he also taught Latin, though not to me.
At university, a fellow-student had been faced with a Latin paper and the instruction "translate this passage".
So he did.
Into Croat
Faced with the fact that the instructions had been complied with, but they had no idea whether the answer was correct, the university authorities contacted the (then) Yugoslav embassy to ask if anyone spoke both Latin and Croat.
"Well there is one person - actually he's a student at your university!"