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Hi lx --> nah, it's not awesome, except for ARabic, all of these are/were Indo-European languages.

I lived in the middle-east (Bahrain) when I was young and I have Persian (Zoroastrian) roots, so that's where I picked up my street Arabic (which is quite different from classical Arabic -- as different as Vulgar Latin from Classical/Church Latin).

I know, fluently, right now 4 that is I can think in them and don't have to translate in my head (english, french, polish and italian). I can speak another 4 with difficulty (translating in my head - german, spanish, hindi). I spent some years in the south of England and had a number of spanish and italian friends (Italian's easier and if you know French, Italian is MUCH easier). Now I live in Poland and have to learn it (as the in-laws like to debate philosophy and religion, ai-yi-yi!)

I would encourage everyone to pick up another language -- your mind has to work in different ways for each language.

I would say that Italian is the easiest for a native English speaker to pick up and Polish is the most difficult. Arabic is surprisingly just a bit easier than Polish (at least rough arabic = yalla, yalla ;-P) and Hindi is quite easier as it's grammar is very mathematical, but for both they have their own scripts which is not the Latin alphabet which CAN be a problem ;-o

As I said, all of the languages I now know are Indo-European and I can see some strange links between languages as varied as Hindi, English, Polish etc.

Now anyone who is an English speaker and speaks fluent Japanese or Chinese has my respect.