I was fortunate to grow up bilingual. My parents immigrated to the United States from Poland, landing in Chicago, home of the second-largest Polish population outside of Warsaw. Knowing the Polish language gave me a great opportunity in my career to work abroad.

Knowing a second language is a good career move, especially if it’s a language in demand, such as Chinese, Spanish, or Arabic. There are more tools than ever to help you learn, too.

Now there’s a social networking website that helps you learn another language. It’s called MyHappyPlanet, and it lets users sign up for free and then practice a language through written or spoken means. What’s different about this type of language learning is the interaction. It was easy to sign up for the site and it was well-organized for finding people with the language skills you are seeking.

Other language-learning social networking sites are described in this Boston Globe article.