If you are a historian (or really a researcher of any kind) thinking of investing time in learning a language: definitely do it. I started learning German ten weeks ago and I'm already finding interesting historical avenues I would never have uncovered otherwise.

Trying to avoid the mistake I made with Russian where I developed an in-depth vocabulary on how to organise global insurrection only to arrive in the country without the ability to ask "please tell me where I can charge my laptop".

In most situations I could put together surreal but understandable phrases like: "Please, comrade archivist, we must carry out the electrification of this computer"