Nice subject ..
Well I am Greek, and second cousin of Leonidas
and first cousin of Jason the admiral of the Argo boat.
http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/ARGONAUTS.html In our schools we had as choice about the standard lesson of an foreign language,
as English and French .
My vote was for the English one . ( and now it pays the price )
Later on we had the choice and for a second language, but you had to stay at the end of the school time,
for another two hours ...
Ok I chose " The German this time " , but in six months time , the school teacher stopped coming,
she was with contract.
So we left at the dry ... no more " studiere Deuch "
And I speak and few Italian , and I had helped few times Italians motorcyclists (tourists ), with technical problems.
Most TV-set repair manuals was written in German or Italian ( The old good days that Europe was making their own stuff )
The language of the future are the Chinese ( Marketing and trading ).
As about the Greek language , are the mother of all in the west world , I would add and the Latin as second in value, but its a dead one.
About the learning curve , if you study exclusively one language ( all day - all night ) for two years , you are ready to start a conversation.
Starting an technical conversation in foreign language ( its for the club of heroes )