I'm sorry, but you're wrong, and you're wrong. First, learning a language is far more involved than proper memorization techniques. Second, there is real evidence that being monolingual causes parts of your brain to atrophy. Seriously! Here's a Science Friday report that talks about the study: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/25/134059279/being-bilingual-not-...

I'll save you some time, though. Essentially, researchers showed babies tapes of a bilingual individual speaking English, then switching to speaking French. After a certain age, monolingual babies were unable to pick up on the switch, whereas bilingual babies were able to detect when the speaker switched languages. Oh, did I mention? The bilingual babies were Spanish/Catalan bilingual. In other words, they were able to pick up on someone switching from English to French, while neither was their native tongue, indicating that being bilingual preserves elements of the language recognition portion of your brain.

As a counterpoint, I was raised monolingual and I can detect when people switch languages. I am not a baby anymore, though.

I've heard good things about raising kids bilingual, however since my wife has the same mother tongue as I we decided against it. I envy the people who have the option.

Certainly you can learn to distinguish languages even if you are raised monolingual, but that is a learned ability. You've still lost the innate ability that you were born with.

Also, there's no reason you can't start your child young with a second language. The French, in particular, are more than happy to train your child in French from a very young age pretty much no matter where you are in the world (search for Alliance Francaise). My wife and I have different native tongues, and we intend to have our child go to a school where the language of instruction is a third different language. We have friends who have raised their son speaking French, Spanish, English, and Turkish. He is now learning Mandarin and is the most articulate 8 year old you've ever met. It really is worth the effort.

Knowing languages other than your native language can be really useful if you work for a multi-national company.

I'm a software developer. My previous gig was at European aerospace company, and my current gig is at international financial institution. At both of these companies there's a wide range of languages spoken, and being able to converse in other colleagues' native language can indeed be useful. Both of these employers see languages as a desirable, but not essential, skill.

I'm not sure about at other businesses but the Software Development company I work for has native speakers of what must be nearly every major language (the only one I haven't come across is Portuguese, and I'm sure that is just because I haven't meet that person yet). For example, the bank of desks I'm sitting at this moment has Greek, Bulgarian, Punjabi, Sri Lankan, Hindi and Russian. It would be quite difficult for me to pick up any of the languages to a standard that could compete with that!

Of course languages can be useful, as I said, I just question the effectiveness of it. At a multinational corp. English would be expected. English is not my first language, so I already know more than one language anyway.

Not being fluent in any languages other than my native tongue, I always feel that I can't really get to grips with a culture without knowing the language.

I find some language - and phrasing quite revealing and beautiful. I love listening to other languages - even if I don't understand them.

I don't mind other languages. Maybe my problem is that there isn't really any other culture I would like to immerse in. Most cultures seem to be all about oppression. I am happy to live in a moderately free world, which also happens to have a high fraction of English speakers.

For example, I might consider learning Mandarin. China sure is fascinating, but I sure as hell wouldn't like to live there. So what would I gain, really? The ability to read some fascinating ancient texts. OK - but as I said, I can imagine better uses of my time.

What would be a an interesting country to immerse in? Most Spanish speaking countries are poor and dangerous. The muslim world suppresses women and is also dangerous, and I could get killed for twittering. Russia? Also too poor, cold and depressing. Japan perhaps, but it is a rather small island and I am probably too tall to ever live there comfortably.

I already live in Europe and there are other European countries I like, but not enough to learn the languages. If I were to move to some obscure EU country, I would of course try to learn their language. But it seems unlikely atm, so why bother?

I think you have to be slightly careful with your sweeping generalisations!

I think culture transcends the state. The citizens of a country don't necessarily represent the state do they?

Of course there are nice people everywhere. But there are nice people at home, too.

What would be a nice country to visit? That is my question?

Take China - it is fascinating, but they don't have free speech and lots of death sentences. That makes it very unattractive to me. Even if I could meet interesting people there, chances are the interesting stuff would be illegal to say. So if I talk about it, I put myself at risk.

At other countries, you don't even meet women on the street. Sure, they might be really nice, but why do all the work to get beyond "culture"? In a lot of countries, if I talk to a woman her brothers might set out to kill me. Additionally, I am not keen on any kind of religion to begin with.

I wrote my rant in the hopes that somebody would come up with a good reason to learn a language or visit "challenged" countries.

I am aware that the Euro zone is a small bubble of moderate happiness on a sea of misery. I am lucky - but why should I leave the bubble and put myself at risk? Or even if I don't put myself at risk, chances are I am just taking advantage of some poor people (because I would travel to some holiday resort because it is so cheap).

Unfortunately historically culture tends to be all about suppressing women, among other things, I am just not into it. It is a set of rules, why should I force myself into it? I want to be free from culture, and I want to meet people who are free minds.

Can you name one worthwhile culture to get to know, and why is it worthwhile? Apart from scientific studies, which are fascinating, but not my line of work.

Clothes are the same all over the world now. Food you can also get a huge variety in most major cities.

Nothing against traveling to the odd country, but then again it is questionable if traveling to some country once for two weeks warrants investing years to learn their language.

> chances are I am just taking advantage of some poor people (because I would travel to some holiday resort because it is so cheap)

Those of us in the 'west' are doing this anyway through food and goods. Sounds like you'd prefer some kind of ethical tourism.

As a note of optimism, history is there to be learnt from. Not very long ago did we see women and blacks oppressed in the so called civilised world.

Since when is a nice hobby a waste of time? What a rude thing to say.

Sorry, but why do I have to like other people's hobbies? If I think they are boring, then I won't pretend it ain't so. However, if he enjoys learning languages, it doesn't bother me in the least. So where is the problem?

Also I admit it frustrates me if people study that kind of thing instead of productive things. Where I live people even go to university studying languages for years. Sorry, but things like engineering simply seem more productive to me, just my opinion. If all those people can find jobs as translators and are happy with it, whatever.

I recently heard of a friend of a friend who is translator for the Spanish envoy and get's to dine with Angela Merkel (German chancellor) occasionally. Might be interesting, but I personally wouldn't dedicate my life to achieving it. That's just me.

Well I only happen to think that only handful of my friends and colleagues do anything of any worth with their working lives. I wouldn't dare say that of course! I'd have no defense if they offered the same retort - and then I'd weep for a few hours thinking my life was of no consequence.

For many employers the subject someone studies is moot, it's the skill sets built around the study that are important. Showing that you can apply yourself to something.

Not that I want to poo poo your idealism.

I do gripe about that aspect of modern live, that I feel most jobs are really worthless and bullshit. It includes my own work life and it depresses me greatly. But I try to work against it and actually do something meaningful. Is it really so bad to encourage my friends to do something meaningful in their lives, too? It's not as if the majority of people is ever so happy about their jobs. They are all depressed, but they think it is normal and so they put up with it. I don't feel guilty for pointing that out occasionally.

Incidentally, isn't that part of what Hacker News is all about?

Hanging out here making comments is of course not at all a waste of time.

If only it was as simple a decision as that: either hang out on HN or learn another language. Frankly, I would probably still choose HN. Even though I hate the noise, I have also learned a lot of things relevant to my job through HN.