It is a useful one, no doubt. It helps you connect faster with other people, it makes travel more freeing, authentic and enjoyable, and very often – cheaper.
It makes you more open-minded and more familiar with other cultures. It can help your career (I believe speaking 4 major languages, even if 2 of them are on a basic level, gave me an edge over other candidates).
I believe that the costs associated with learning a foreign language are more than recouped by the benefits.
First time I went to China I did not know a word of Mandarin.
I after 3 weeks, I decided I would like to stay there for a while (first 2 weeks I hated it 
). So I came back to the States, talked to the Head of Humanities Department, and convinced him to let me go to China for a semester and accept all credits I will earn from the University in China. It was incredible that I was allowed to do it!
So instead of paying 14K for a semester in my school, I paid a little over 1K for tuition in China, and around maybe 6K to live there like a queen, eating out every day, hanging out in cafes/tea houses/bars and having a tonn of fun.
That included traveling after the semester was over – hitchhiking through Tibet (We managed to convince a local official in a small Tibetan town to give me and DH permits) and we went by ourselves all the way from Lhasa to Nepal, than flew to Russia(I also speak Russian), met up with some friends, took a train to Belarus…. All together it was an 8 months trip for HALF the cost of 1 regular semester at my university.
I have been to China 5 times now, and my employer is paying for my language classes.
It is a very difficult language, not intuitive at all, unlike some languages - Spanish, for example(with just high school Italian you can understand about half of it, without even studying).
DH takes few months of classes though, each time we go on vacation to a Spanish-speaking country. He also knows enough Cantonese for us to travel in Southern China more comfortably. So we are able to speak while travelling across a good part of the globe. That experience also gave us confidence to travel ndependently in counties where we don’t speak the language. We have met a ton of interesting people and saw so many beautiful places…
So far we have been in half the provinces in China plus HK and Tibet
Nepal
Vietnam
Korea
Taiwan
Thailand
Cambodia
Japan
Argentina
Ecuador
Russia
Belarus
Ukraine
Poland
Netherlands
France
Germany
Austria
And going on your own is a COMPLETELY different experience than getting some tour. You really get to FEEL the place only when going independently and staying for a while. Those who have done it understand what I am talking about. Those who say they do not enjoy travel... it is because they have not travelled this way.
So learning languages takes effort. It is a long process. You have to be persistent. But it is something that you will have with you wherever you go. It can come useful in unexpected moments, it brings many surprises, and it is very rewarding.
Studying a foreign language is a cheap and rewarding hobby.
October 19th, 2009 at 03:00 pm
October 19th, 2009 at 05:25 pm 1255973111
I am glad that for you, it's a cheap and rewarding hobby.
October 19th, 2009 at 06:24 pm 1255976696
I don't know anyone who did not get addicted after actually doing that once.
October 19th, 2009 at 07:20 pm 1255980019
October 19th, 2009 at 11:32 pm 1255995147
i studied italian for 9 years.
October 20th, 2009 at 01:58 am 1256003885
French would be nice to know, but I am still stuck on Mandarin. That one is very difficult to get to fluency level. I did not fully appreciate how challenging it would be when I started. It is just so completely different from all European languages. My languages are all from different families, hence the challenge. If it was, say, Spanish, Italian and French, it would be far easier.
DH has English, Cantonese and some Spanish.
October 20th, 2009 at 05:21 am 1256016110
October 20th, 2009 at 02:41 pm 1256049661
Russian, for example, has difficult grammar. But at least is has an alphabet! And it is much easier to remember long words that are unique than to have very limited number of words with multiple meanings assigned to them. I find this aspect to be most challenging. Tonality is another matter. But just the sheer amount of memorization... You have to separately remember how the character is written, how it is pronounced, and what it means.
I am ranting again... I find Chinese very challenging. It is like soliving puzzles. But I'm not giving up!
November 6th, 2009 at 10:41 pm 1257547294
Jerry