For example, you will hear a lot about object-oriented programming (OOP), but you won't really know what that actually means until you've learned at least one good object-oriented language, and at least one language that is not object-oriented.
One of the best reasons to not learn C++ is that it will give you a worse impression of OOP, as C++ in many ways represents OOP done wrong.
However, if you read about Python or Scheme, you can easily understand what makes these languages great places to start.
Python has a very clean and natural syntax, and even as a complete beginner you can master it in a much shorter time.
http://www.python.org/