Here’s why some languages are impressive to me. The languages are sorted alphabetically.
C
C is the oldest widely used language, and almost all of today’s widely used languages were heavily influenced by C (at least indirectly). It tends to have the fastest execution speed of all high-level languages and has relatively few features which makes it quick to learn. C is used in spaceships and space exploration rovers, among many other cases.
C++
C++ is one of the fastest and most widely used languages. It is ancient, but has been continuously adapting to keep up with the times. The problems caused by having tons of “outdated” features that must be kept in the language for backwards compatibility are being somewhat mitigated by guides and tools such as “C++ Core Guidelines” by Bjarne Stroustrup and Herb Sutter.
C#
When you need a modern, garbage collected language with almost every feature and option you can imagine, you probably want C#. The language’s LINQ and Entity Framework make accessing data easier than in most other languages.
Go
With Go, you spend less time thinking about the language and tools you’re using so you can focus more on the problem you’re solving. Go found a great balance between execution speed and developer productivity, and is better than many languages at both. Its concurrency features are amazing. Go is generally the best language for network software, and is excellent for website backends.
JavaScript
It’s everywhere and many jobs require practice with it. JavaScript runs somewhat fast despite being garbage collected and interpreted. The ecosystem is always growing quickly and has been for a long time.
Python
Python is easy to learn because of how many guides and tutorials there are for it. The error messages are very understandable, and the syntax is simple and clear. Getting small projects done with Python is super fast, which makes it great for automation/scripting/“glue”, machine learning, data science (including data visualization), timed programming challenges such as Advent of Code, and some technical interviews.
Rust
I don’t know Rust and I’m not sure if I will learn it, but from what I’ve heard, it has achieved something no other language has so far: both memory safety and nearly unbeatable execution speed. Rust also has many modern features that make it great for creating command-line tools.