For example, when I was a high school student applying to Caltech's undergraduate program I took a look at the graduate school section of the catalog just to see what their math and physics PhD requirements were.
They had a language requirement for a math PhD. To get a PhD you had to either be fluent in one of French, German, or Russian, or you had to have a sufficient reading ability in two of those to read the current and historical math literature in those languages.
That kind of thing is much better to take care of in high school or as an undergraduate.