[zkoch]

I think so. I've done a lot of travelling abroad, and as an American who only speaks English, I was always a little bit ashamed that I could only manage one language. The shame was particularly great in poorer areas of Western Africa and India where people that didn't have half the education I did could speak four to five languages.

In fact, almost a year ago I left my job as a developer in San Francisco to accept a position in China solely for the purpose of becoming fluent in Chinese. I had taken classes in college, but those will of course never get you past the point of asking where the restroom is. I'm about 11 months into my venture, and my Chinese skills have improved by leaps and bounds (to such a point that I actually just did a full phone interview in Chinese). I took a huge pay cut to come here, but I think it's been worth it.

I can tell you that China is a very different country when you understand the language, and I'm sure this applies to every country in the world. So yes, I think it's definitely worth the effort to learn another language.