Knowing other languages definitely helps one to appreciate other cultures. I studied Japanese on my own in high school, and then took some classes in college. Although I never used it, and almost forgot it completely, I appreciate Japanese’ thinking patterns a lot more because I once studied its language. For example, being an Asian and being a woman, I try not to speak anything in Japanese (not that my Japanese is that good) in business settings because I might actually be taken less seriously. (I know of such stories). In other settings, I was told that my accent was actually quite good and was questioned whether I was ethnic Japanese. So there goes the dilemma — people might mistake me as an overseas Japanese who didn’t learn her native language!

While I agree with JES that knowing another language is not necessary in one’s professional career, it can be very helpful. When I travel in China, I can tell what those Chinese executives were really saying/thinking much better than my American collegues who soly relies on translation. Plus, it’s just a lot more fun. People are a lot more expressive when they speak in their native languages, and it’s more interesting to get to know them in their native languages.

Whatever the case, kids learn languages much faster than adults, so why not!