learning a foreign language?

[lane mcbride]

At my work, I have tons upon tons of free time. I've decided that with this free time I'm going to a learn a few foreign languages.

I was hoping some of you guys may have some personal experience or knowledge about the subject.

Currently I speak English (native language), spanish, and a little bit of italian. I plan on learning some of the romance languages since they should be easy for me to pick up, but ultimately I would like to learn some other languages as well (maybe 3 or 4 more).

I have the following questions:

1. what are some of the easier languages to learn aside from the romance languages?

2. what are the hardest languages to learn

3. what do you think would be the top 5 or top 10 most useful languages to know (romance languages included)

4. I've heard the rosetta stone website is a good place to learn foreign languages. Does anybody have any experience with this site?

5.) does anybody have any other advice about learning foreign languages?

6.) any weird languages I should learn just for the hell of it... i.e. swahili or something?

7.) how long would it take an average person to learn some of the languages fluently (maybe number of hours spent studying, or a rough number of days)? i.e. chinese, russian, arabic, french etc.

thanks in advance, I really appreciate it

-Lane