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Arabic or Chinese? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Ushagi Newbie United States Joined 6403 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes | Message 1 of 43 13 October 2006 at 10:36am | IP Logged | ||
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This is my first post on this forum, nice to meet you all.
My question is, can you help me choose which language to learn? My choices are Chinese and Arabic, and it's really difficult for me to decide. The reason for learning another language is that I'm doing some translation work from Swedish to English, and I want to expand my language selection. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6676 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes  Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 2 of 43 13 October 2006 at 10:54am | IP Logged | ||
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Whichever one you choose, be warned that they're virtually life-long committments! Both Chinese and Arabic are fairly tough languages and especially if you want to bring your proficiency to the level that professional translators should have. With Chinese you will have to learn a heck of a lot of characters and words just to be able to read a newspaper, let alone translate documents.
The important thing, in my opinion, is that you have a genuine interest in learning either Chinese or Arabic. Without that, you won't really get beyond the basics. A lot of people start learning Chinese and Arabic thinking that knowing those languages will make them rich someday and the vast majority give up fairly quickly when they realise it's a lot more work than they expected. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AML Senior Member United States Joined 6611 days ago 323 posts - 426 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish | Message 3 of 43 13 October 2006 at 11:04am | IP Logged | ||
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You haven't given us the reasons you are using to decide between the two,
so it's difficult to help. So, since I don't know anything about you or why you'd want to learn either language, then I'll say learn Chinese. good luck! Edited by AML on 13 October 2006 at 11:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| neo Diglot Groupie IndiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6592 days ago 81 posts - 83 votes Speaks: Hindi*, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 4 of 43 13 October 2006 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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my fav question:
if you were given a free trip to either of the countries where the two languages are spoken,which would you choose ? the answer is the language you shd learn. [assuming that you are 'into' languages for fun rather than work (=professional requirements/ moving to that country...in which case you do not have a choice and then your question becomes null and void.) ---- neo 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6801 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 43 13 October 2006 at 2:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Are these the first languages you are aiming to learn? If so, given their tricky nature, it is probably easier to become discouraged than if learning an easier language.
If you must choose between them, then I'd go for Arabic (although I'm biased) since there aren't thousands of characters to learn, even though the grammar is much harder than Mandarin. P.S. Welcome to the forum. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6563 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 43 13 October 2006 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | ||
I would agree with patuco (even though I prefer Chinese myself). The amount of learning you have to do to get to the same reading level is much more difficult for Mandarin. Plus, if you're doing it for the tranlsation business, then I'd imagine your clients will have fewer options when looking for a translator for Arabic than for Chinese since Chinese is becoming popular. You can find a Chinese speaking person easier than one who speaks Arabic. But then again, there might be a lot more work for Chinese than Arabic. However, learning to read Chinese is a lot more work. For the average learner, after two years of learning, I'd imagine the one learning Arabic can pick up a book and work through it easier than the one who is learning Chinese. You might want to look into the pay rates as well. How much does Chinese translation pay compared to Arabic translation? You really need to do a lot of investigation in order to make an informed choice. You have to figure out the Return On Investment. How much time will you invest? How much return will you get? You are doing this for business, so write up a business plan. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Leeeoooooo Newbie United States Joined 6472 days ago 18 posts - 20 votes Studies: Spanish, English* Studies: German, Japanese | Message 7 of 43 13 October 2006 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Wow!
When I first asked this question myself, I very nearly flipped a coin. Actually, the choices I gave myself were between Japanese and Arabic (I was looking for something non-romance, ideally non-european, since I had found that my learning of Spanish was being interfered with by my recent lessons in German--just enough alike, yet different, to be confusing--I hoped, and found, that choosing something Really Different did make things easier). I went for Japanese because of the growing popularity of anime at the time. I could find more original examples of pop culture to refer to. This turned out to be a big help. Of course learning Japanese taught me just enough to become curious about Chinese, but I decided to look at Arabic again because events were heating up in the middle east and I was beginning to see and hear more of it. The biggest hold-up for me as far as Chinese is concerned is *which* Chinese to learn. Mandarin is pretty standard and many Japanese words are borrowed from it, but the locals around here spoke Cantonese and some of my favorite movies were in Cantonese. Best to learn both? Or maybe I could just focus on learning to read without necessarily learning to speak it? Ultimately, you have to make you own choice for your own reasons. Take an introductory look at each language and see which one "grows" on you. There are good reasons to learn any language--only you know which ones make the most sense to you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| japkorengchi Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6466 days ago 334 posts - 355 votes | Message 8 of 43 13 October 2006 at 11:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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We may also look into the number of Chinese/Arabics capable of speaking English as a factor.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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