How much of a text in ancient Greek (e.g. by Platon) will an average modern Greek understand without ever having learnt ancient Greek?
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It really depends. Do you want to choose a random text and I’ll try to point out parts that would be difficult?
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Platon Apology, 17a:
»ὅτι μὲν ὑμεῖς, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, πεπόνθατε ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν κατηγόρων, οὐκ οἶδα: ἐγὼ δ᾽ οὖν καὶ αὐτὸς ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν ὀλίγου ἐμαυτοῦ ἐπελαθόμην, οὕτω πιθανῶς ἔλεγον. καίτοι ἀληθές γε ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν οὐδὲν εἰρήκασιν. μάλιστα δὲ αὐτῶν ἓν ἐθαύμασα τῶν πολλῶν ὧν ἐψεύσαντο, τοῦτο ἐν ᾧ ἔλεγον ὡς χρῆν ὑμᾶς εὐλαβεῖσθαι μὴ ὑπ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἐξαπατηθῆτε.«
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Any Germans who want to try Dutch? Might also be a language that’s close enough for English people to try, although Frisian would be better for that.
Hier is het recept voor Franse uiensoep. Ik heb het vanavond zelf gemaakt en het was heerlijk! Eerst snijd je een kilo uien in reepjes, dan bak je de uien in olijfolie tot ze glazig zijn. Vergeet niet regelmatig te roeren. Voeg een klont boter, een theelepel suiker en twee kleingesneden teentjes knoflook toe, en bak de uien tot ze donkerbruin worden. Schenk twee koppen witte wijn door de uien en breng aan de kook tot de alcohol verdampt is. Tot slot voeg je een liter runderbouillon toe, een paar twijgjes tijm, laurierblad en zout naar smaak en breng je de soep aan de kook voor een paar minuten. Serveer de soep over een geroosterd stokbroodje belegd met kaas, bij voorkeur Gruyère.
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I’ve been thinking about trying to learn Dutch, in keeping with my “Sprachsbund” idea. The interested student could map out a small contiguous area of the European Channel coast, eg. like this: Dutch, Flemish, French, Norman French, Walloon, German, Frisian. After that it would be time to study the Celtic and then Norse languages, perhaps with the intent to use the North Sea as the base of the linguistic area.
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I know absolutely zero Dutch or German, but I’ll give it a shot. All of this is going to be complete guesses, so it’s probably not even close.
Here is the recipe for French (onion soup?)
I have the ? self made and it was ? ! First do something to one kilo of onion? in something. Then bake the onion in olive oil until glazed?
I’ll stop there, that’s really hard.
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It’s very close, actually 
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»ὅτι μὲν ὑμεῖς, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, πεπόνθατε ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν κατηγόρων, οὐκ οἶδα: ἐγὼ δ᾽ οὖν καὶ αὐτὸς ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν ὀλίγου ἐμαυτοῦ ἐπελαθόμην, οὕτω πιθανῶς ἔλεγον. καίτοι ἀληθές γε ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν οὐδὲν εἰρήκασιν. μάλιστα δὲ αὐτῶν ἓν ἐθαύμασα τῶν πολλῶν ὧν ἐψεύσαντο, τοῦτο ἐν ᾧ ἔλεγον ὡς χρῆν ὑμᾶς εὐλαβεῖσθαι μὴ ὑπ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἐξαπατηθῆτε.«
Bold are words that are basically the same today, or still in use. But they are mostly simple words, or they might have a different meaning.
Italics are the words that are really difficult.
The rest is up to the person, I’ve seen grandmas recognize some words because of church. 
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I can understand almost everything, but I’m not sure if I would be able to follow the recipe in every detail. 
So, uien are probably onions? And tijm is thyme? Is laurierblad = Lorbeer (aah, it’s laurel leaf in English, so probably yes)?
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Russian (native) and English (read/write well, but bad understand speech)
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Do you know this sentence in Latin?
“In girum imos nocte et consomimur igni”
Theoretically, it originates as a demonic phrase from the medieval era which means:
“we go around at night and are consumed by the flames”
Its peculiarity is that it is a palindrome phrase (you can read it from beginning to end or from end to beginning):
INGIRUMIMOSNOCTEETCONSOMIMURIGNI
Really demoniac, don’t you think?
Actually, it is an invention of Umberto Eco an Italian philosopher and novelist who is an expert of the medieval period.
EDIT: wikipedia reports that the phrase is perhaps attributable to Virgilio. Maybe U. Eco only discovered it or made it popular again.
For the most curious I report also other info since wikipedia English version of the page doesn’t exist yet. The complete phrase should be:
“In girum imos nocte, ecce, et consomimur igni”
who can be translated in:
“we go round in the night and, suddenly, we are consumed by the fire”
and it should refer to the moths who are attracted by the light of torches used in that epoch until they find death among flames.
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That’s really interesting. At first I thought what you were saying was going to be more related to buffaloes, and I got confused about the whole demonic Latin thing.
The neatest palindrome that I know in English is:
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!
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Buffalo buffalo Buffalo… is amazing. Only in English you can write sentences like that because you are quite free to omit Saxon genitive.
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I am from Cologne, and thus gladly understood all except »voorkeur«.
(Judging from the context, it should mean “preferentially” or so.)
It is amazing, how similar the two languages are.
We sometimes joke that Dutch is but an orthographically disguized German dialect — but this certainly isn’t politically correct. 
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I wonder if this works in any other language with such a long sentence.
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CHINESE: “Hold my beer…”
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Links from the “Buffalo …” Wikipedia page led me to these (along with the page already linked by @tonybe):
And here are some more English examples
And I think here is a larger list:
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In German — again nowadays politically incorrect — the longest popular palindrome is:
»Ein Neger mit Gazelle zagt im Regen nie.«
(A negro with a gazelle never hesitates in the rain.)
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It’s not “nowadays politically incorrect”, but it has always been racist. It only was easier to ignore it.
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