Bill Gates biggest regret is not learning a language

The world’s richest person, Microsoft founder and philanthropist, Bill Gates recently held an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on popular social news networking site reddit. An ‘Ask me Anything’ event , or ‘AMA’ is an open forum where members of the website can post questions for Bill Gates covering anything the asker may be  interested in. The questions range from ‘What type of Pizza do you like?’ through to the inner workings of the Microsoft company.

One user, going by the name ‘kingoftheanthill’ asked Bill Gates

Is there anything in life that you regret doing or not doing?

With Bill Gates replying

I feel pretty stupid that I don’t know any foreign languages. I took Latin and Greek in High School and got A’s and I guess it helps my vocabulary but I wish I knew French or Arabic or Chinese. I keep hoping to get time to study one of these – probably French because it is the easiest. I did Duolingofor awhile but didn’t keep it up. Mark Zuckerberg amazingly learned Mandarin and did a Q&A with Chinese students – incredible.

Bill Gates’ answer was somewhat surprising, considering all the work he does around the globe including running the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which is the largest private charitable foundation in the world. The primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and in America, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology.

In case you’re wondering who Bill Gates was talking about when he mentioned Mark Zuckerberg is by the way, he’s the guy who created and runs a little website known as Facebook.