Foreign languages are a waste of time

There ROI of learning Russian as an American is close to zero. Only Spanish makes some sense and only because it's not entirely foreign. I know a tiny handful of Westerners who learned to speak Russian, and they wouldn't have lost anything without ever learning a word. Everyone speaks English more or less tolerably anyway. The Japanese are very good at learning Russian for some reason. Takes them about a year to learn to speak pretty well. I studied Japanese for five years very intensively and my Master's thesis was about the concepts of heart and mind in Japanese, but linguistics is mind-numbingly boring, and ultimately it's about as useless a skill as I am as a human being

For some I'm sure they are a waste of time. For others, learning foreign languages is useful.

My oldest was always interested in Russian culture and took four years of Russian language courses in college. I'm sure that served her well during the three years she spent there.

She has also taken several years of Spanish language classes and tells me it is very helpful to know living in Santiago. She says she is still getting used to the Chilean Spanish dialect spoken there. It is apparently a bit different than other Spanish dialects.

I remember rocking corduroy bell bottoms back in the 70's, great pic!