Languages and access to literature

I had a nightmare last night. My nightmares are always reflective of my anxieties during the daytime. So what happened was that I was asked to purchase a book from this publisher or company, whatever you call it, http://waxmann.com/. And it was mainly in German and for many of these companies, they do not deduct your credit card money immediately, but it seems like someone will work on it some time later after you purchased something. So, I was worried I was scammed, and this is not a real company.

I woke up in the middle of the night to access the website again. And to my relief, it looked credible. It's just that it favours publications in German, so perhaps they were reaching out to a German audience and we English-speakers, hear very little about these publishers. And just to try my luck, I search on their website "patriotism", hoping to find some useful resources.

And I found one article that was related to my topic! It's called "Russian Concepts of Patriotism and their Reflection in the Education System Today" by James Muckle: http://www.pedocs.de/volltexte/2012/3312/pdf/TC_1_2003_muckl_D_A.pdf

Wow, you know, I have been searching for articles and books for so long, and these wonderful pieces of work always seem to escape me, and I still stumble upon them. They're not on the search engines or google scholar. It's wonderful that this Englishman, an expert on Russia, has written on Russia. It's wonderful to me, because it's much easier to read such pieces compared to translations of works from other languages. Translations always seem rather convoluted in their language and it's effortful for me to read them. But with this writer, I feel that I can touch the soul of the Russians. It's different from reading something written from the Russian perspective. For this article, I could sense the writer's fascination and love for Russia.

Okay, why this post? We have often hear of the need to pick up another language to access resources on our research interests only available in those languages. I agree. I feel that, particularly my topic on patriotism, many of the works out there I have no access to, particularly the works I need to give me a holistic picture of patriotism in the world. I mainly read things from the American or English-speaking people's perspective and it's very different from the other ways of experiencing patriotism from the non-American and non-English speaking people's perspective.

But language has never been a strength for me. Maybe I'm not tenacious enough. I've struggled with basic Japanese and French. I think I have had some success with sign language though. ;) If I were to really pick up another language... Which language should I pick up?