I recall listening to a recent interview with Chris Lattner who said the more languages you learn the faster it is to pick up others because of the overlaps.

I recall listening to a recent interview with Chris Lattner who said the more languages you learn the faster it is to pick up others because of the overlaps. Working in other languages, the idea of references and values didn't kick in to me, that is until I learned basic C++. I think it's because C++ engineers (well, the ones I would watch anyway) were sticklers for performance and so they'd describe the subtle differences in implementation. Even though I don't code C++ anymore, using it for a short time really helped to develop a better understanding of how code actually works.