If a tree fallls in a French forest, does it make any sound (or does it say "Oui")

Being ready is always good (always ready, boyscouts, forest, ok, stop the free association). And it is specially good when you are in a foreign country and you are the only one who speaks the language.
Once I was working for a project, and we visited the factory in French. It was a Japanese company, and people stayed late. However, our French colleagues left at 20:00 so the only remaining people where my Japanese bosses, an Englishman, me and 200 factory workers. As you can imagine, the factory workers didn't speak English. Suddenly, with my rudimentary French, I was everyone's translator. That single day proved how right I was trying to learn all the variants of each verb.
Even though I am not very good at languages (unlike a friend of mine whose name I won't mention who speaks perfect Hungarian, English, German and Spanish, or this other woman who Speaks also Spanish, Catalan, German, English and French), I enjoy learning French and Italian, quite easy for me, and German, which is almost beyond my possibilities. I want to learn a few more languages (you never know when they might become useful), and I was thinking about Portuguese to relax, or a tough one, like an Eastern European language, or Hebrew. Anyone who wants to comment (or cheer for their favorite language), be my guest.