It sure is commendable. I think it's easy for some nationals where they have English as the medium of instruction in school and colleges - not to mention our country, India, where people from different states have to resort to English as the common language to communicate.
What interests me is this innate flair for languages in some which makes it real easy to learn languages. My 6 year old nephew in India speaks english and 3 other regional Indian languages with great ease already.
One notion i got rid of after visiting English speaking countries is that, having English for mother tongue doesn't make one an English expert
- which in fact came as a surprise.