Hey, thought you'd appreciate this (shortened version) story of an encounter of mine:
I recently met an Indian army soldier in depatures at Amritsar airport (won't tell you which unit he was from, mostly because he wouldn't tell me!) on my way home to UK, got talking to him and found out he could speak ELEVEN languages English, Russian, Urdu, Hebrew, Tamil, Mandarin, Cantonese, Punjabi(admittedly his native tongue) Arabic, Saraiki and Pashtun ( not hard to see which region this guy's AO was!). He also said he would probably learn more. Like I said he wouldn't tell me his unit but he was a VERY fit looking man and very built but I spoke to him in English and it was perfect ( he even knew slang!).One of the most incredible encounters of my life, just surreal.