Some common advice among developers is to learn “a programming language a year”. I will not argue for or against this advice. Nevertheless, you might also consider to learn something different: For once, you might start learning another foreign language.

The same way that another programming language can broaden your mind and let experience new ways of programming, a foreign language can broaden your experiences, let you understand other cultures and countries better, and give you a better understanding of your native language. So, do some research on what language you could learn, buy a book, attend a language class, listen to radio or whatch one of those movies you almost know by heart in the language you are learning. Listen to music and immerse yourself for half an hour a day. Chances are, that you will have something along the way.

Why do I bring this up? John D. Cook blogged about whether fluent language speakers exist or not (he concludes that selection bias is involved). I would like to add: if we can learn math, and multiple programming languages, why not learn French, Turkish, Japanese or Swahili?