I don't think you have much to worry about if you pursue C/C++ right now. The paradigms in C++ carry over to Java and other OO languages pretty easily. When I s

I don't think you have much to worry about if you pursue C/C++ right now. The paradigms in C++ carry over to Java and other OO languages pretty easily. When I said it's a lot easier to learn the second language after learning your first, I meant it. Once you get one language down (and I mean actually get it down), the concepts pass from one language to another fairly easily. From there, you're just learning syntax and some of the oddities of the language of your choosing. It took me probably two years to really learn Java, but I learned Python in 6 weeks. I was able to sit down and be productive in php after reading about it over a weekend. Ruby (on Rails) took me about a month to learn. COBOL was probably a week. Now I'm learning C and Assembly without really being taught much C and Assembly, just the concepts behind them that differ from what I'm used to. My point is, I stuck with Java for two years until I really got my head around it, then I moved on to other languages with relative ease. I can only imagine that becomes easier with time, not harder. I definitely think it's a good idea to learn other languages, but what, exactly, is your goal? Are you trying to understand CS concepts better, or are do you just want to learn another language?