Real Effort for Languages (Score 1)

Being a language geek and having a degree in Verbal Engineering (linguistics) I would say that it is a good idea to learn a foreign language. However, the following items should be taking into account.

Language Learning: In learning languages you need to realize that you will be working in one or more of four language environments. They break down into two passives and two actives. The passives are Listening and Reading while the actives are Speaking and Writing. Listening, Reading, and Writing all occur inside your brain and therefore don't have the "verbal baggage" that you get when you open your mouth and begin to speak. Speaking is a very neuromuscular activity that requires you to practice, record yourself, and develop an ear for what is considered acceptable for pronunciation in your chosen target language. Or, you can just fuddle through it and sound like the typical monolingual American murdering the language without making an effort in learning how to pronounce it right. And yes, you can learn how to roll/trill your "r's" like in Spanish because Bernoulli figured it out and all Airplanes fly because of the same principle (Dog Bless Science).

Language Maintenance: Once you've gotten beyond the "beginner's" equivalent of your language you may come to a sickening realization that maintaining language fluency is just like maintaining a diet and your weight: LOOOONNNNNNNNNNGGG and time-consuming. The more you focus on it the more you realize that there is a good bit of work in keeping your fluency. You didn't have all the childhood years growing up in the language are trying to compensate for all those "lost" years. Hence, the "use it or lose it" adage. Maintaining fluency is easier for the passives (reading, listening) and much harder for the actives (writing, speaking). A lot of effort is involved with the later two and requires to you actively get out and speak or write. Even though this is a slashdot crowd, I won't bore you with the amount of research that supports language maintenance and attrition. You just have to do it and deal with the time involved. Some will pick it up quicker and some will take a lot longer. Remember, languages are not necessarily logical and can have double-negatives that still mean a negative (sorry to bash all you math-dweebs out there, I hope your sensitive logical personalities can handle this) and also far more ambiguous then asking if you've beaten your wife lately. So have fun.

So, pick a language wisely and then be motivated to study it. And no, mathematics is not the universal language because it still can't define emotion other than Level42 equaling the answer. Something up with which I will not put.

Tom