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I think language is secondary skill but anyway it should be at high level. If product designed bad no language can improve it.
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I only learned enough to finish what I had to do.
When I got out of the fetal position I took a shower and cleaned myself real good.
A girl phoned me and said, 'Come on over. There's nobody home.' I went over. Nobody was home! Rodney Dangerfield
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First of all, forcing you to use an unknown (to you) language likely means it is an already existing project. At least that was the case for me. I'd like to say I'd answer the first way listed, but reality doesn't work that way.
About 2 weeks ago I was given a task "Add this field to this software" I did, but guess what, scope creep. So bad that the webpage had to be updated, too. Broken, badly architected, badly written, and undocumented ASP with SOAP, etc. I told the requesting party that I do not know how anything about ASP in an attempt to push back the deadline, the response was "well, take a look." This turned into "It's due Friday" (On Wednesday) and finally "It's due by midday today" On that Thursday. I'd love to learn ASP as I went along, but that was impossible with the looming deadline and horrible base code.
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. "
— Hunter S. Thompson
My comedy.
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It has happened to me several times. It started over 25 years ago with VAX Pascal and just ocntinued from there. As others have said, in some ways it's the best way to learn a language! You have to!
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I guess I meant the title question to mean the survey should have included if it's happened to you. I agree it's a way to learn, but management needs to understand that it's not a simple task.
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. "
— Hunter S. Thompson
My comedy.
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That's true.
Of course, if you're going to have to learn the language anyway, you're going to have to write some code examples to see how things work, so they might as well be stuff you're going to use for the project. As you gain experience, you can (usually) go back and improve things later!
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This can happen with new projects too  . On the first week on my new job I was given a project to build an interface for a telephone server. At this point I was a C++ programmer with zero experience in VB. The head of department then told me that every program in this company is written in VB, so I started learning .
I must admit, VB isn't the hardest language to learn, but I dived in and learned it as I went through the project. Now after 6 years we did a more or less complete redo on the project, to remove the "lessens learned" passages in the code  .
cheers
Phil
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The project is maintence of a 100,000 line VAX BASIC application from the 90's and you start tomorrow... have fun
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I code VB.Net for a living. Before that, I did mostly VB6 
Now, having to work on a VAX again... that is a rubbish heap of a different stench.
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Bring it on!  
Steve
_________________
I C(++) therefore I am
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Been there, done that, took the money, and ran.
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With 100,000 lines of code, even if it's written in one of your faviorate languages, it's quite a job to maintain the project at a short notice.
Best,
Jun
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Sign me up! But then I've written Vax BASIC when was it, oh, in the 80s...
It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it’s because we do not dare that things are difficult. ~Seneca
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OT. I know who you are now. I was looking at recommendations on a certain food book on Amazon when I ran across your recommendation.
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That's me! I also did a lot of testing in the UK for one Peter Reinhart's Bread Books - baking is my hobby (I used to be semi-professional). I probably have more baking books that programming ones, so if you want advice I'd be happy to oblige. On baking books, that is, you probably don't need programming ones!
It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it’s because we do not dare that things are difficult. ~Seneca
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I was actually hunting about for recipes for Coeliac's when I came across Rose's Heavenly Cakes. I bought it to bake food for the kids based on your review, so thanks - the Ginger cake is the moistest, tastiest cake I've come across in a long time.
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I reckon that's one of the best in the book. I double up the lemon drizzle just to put it over the top. Glad you are enjoying it. Do you bake bread? Peter Reinhart's next book is a 'free from' type book for people with allergies, etc. so may be of interest to you. Sourdough breads are my REAL passion.
It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it’s because we do not dare that things are difficult. ~Seneca
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AnnieMacD wrote: Do you bake bread
We do. I have to do it in two batches - the gluten free run for Mrs Yoda, then the flour version for myself and the kids. I wasn't aware that Peter's book was going to be free from; I will definitely keep an eye out for that. My current favourite is Ann Byrn's book "The Cake Mix Doctor bakes Gluten Free". The White Chocolate Pound cake is delicious, and as tasty for the none-Coeliac members as well.
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Stop trying to hire people. 
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I've had to do small projects using languages I wasn't familiar with.
Programming constructs like looping, flow controls are generally the same, it is more like learning a new syntax to the same things. With moderen IDE's that check the syntax and provide suggestions it is easier than ever to learn new languages.
Oh and we can't forget Google! With Google it is so easy to find code examples, Good and bad.
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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... eat a bacon samich.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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I've never learned a new language, framework, or other 'big thing' other than through diving in and using it for a real project. Simply reading or doing book or lab exercises doesn't leave me with confidence in the material. My most recent example was learning C# and WPF. I asked for book recommendations here at CP, bought a couple books, and took a DevelopMentor class for a week. It really didn't start sinking in until I'd been working with it for a couple of months on my project that needed it. During that time I restarted the project multiple times and made countless throwaway projects to play with things that looked interesting.
I realize this isn't the point of the survey, which seems to be more interested in how you react to having to learning something new. I can't imagine any response other than "dive in and do it". Quit, just because you have to learn a new language? That's like a carpenter leaving his job because his boss wants him to use a different hammer. If that's your attitude, your employment history will eventually render you unhirable.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Learning a new language isn't so bad, but what if they want you to learn Clipper or Z80 assembler?
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I have a fairly good recollection of Z80, after early experiences with a ZX81.
That was really Z80 - I had no assembler, so had to hand-code opcodes to machine code.
Anyone else remember such beautys as DATA statements full of hex strings, and subroutines to POKE them into memory.
Still it could be worse - one of my first exposures was a friend with a kit computer with 9 switches on the front panel, one per bit and "commit", so I guess a keyboard and hex were a luxury by comparison.
However these early experiences were valuable - learning assembly and hex are skills I still value. When writing C++ that must be optimal, it can be useful to peek at the generated assembler to see what the compiler made of it. Particularly with templates - different compilers have radically different capabilities optimising templates, and its good to see whether something generates efficient code.
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