Newbie Question on R versus Matlab/Octave versus C

[...]

These all have advantages and
disadvantages for certain tasks, but as I'm new to R I hardly know how
to evaluate them. Any suggestions?

If you have one-hour left, you
can download  pdf file (8 pages total)
"Getting started in R"
from http://ilustat.com/shared/Getting-Started-in-R.pdf

And then try running the code used in the examples.

Regards
Martin