<p>Yeah, either way, fluency will be a long and difficult road, but very commendable. Good luck.</p>
<p>I would suggest taking Chinese, which, I assume, is Mandarin. </p>
<p>From what I've heard, the Arabic taught in courses is the formal literary Arabic, which wouldn't do much for you since regions in the Middle East speak numerous different dialects. Worse of all, these dialects are sometimes incompatible with each other or literary Arabic.</p>
<p>At least, with Mandarin, it is spoken in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc, and the regional dialects of some regions, for example Cantonese, I've heard, are similar to Mandarin.</p>
<p>Well, Cantonese isn't similar to Mandarin at all. They speak Cantonese in Hong Kong, and Taiwanese is popularly spoken in Taiwan (though most will understand Mandarin). A bigger stumbling block comes with characters - Hong Kong and Taiwan (along with isolated other areas) still use the Traditional character set over the PRC-sanctioned simplified set. It can get hairy...</p>