<p>I've tested out of German, and I really don't want to go any further in the language. I plan on taking Spanish and possibly a second language. Which is more valuable- French or Arabic? Both languages sound really interesting.</p>
<p>French is horrible. Try Arabic.</p>
<p>what do you want to do with the language? French is a good language for international relations. Arabic too but much more important to the State Department right now.</p>
<p>It's mostly out of interest. I'm going to major in biology (possible second major/minor in linguistics), so neither is directly helpful, I think.</p>
<p>go with Arabic....it's different</p>
<p>my dad speaks arabic, and i really wish i could. so many more people know french than arabic, so be a little different and try arabic. and even if you take the class and decide you dont like it, you still opened your eyes to something new.</p>
<p>arabic. french sucks ass. plus, the cia wants to hire people who speak arabic. how cool is that?</p>
<p>Although, I bet French classes would have better looking girls</p>
<p>I am considering taking Arabic instead of Spanish. However, who believes that Spanish is a more viable for a career in law and politics. Then again, I do want to be involved in international relations and national security. In that aspect it seems that Arabic is a more suitable language. </p>
<p>How difficult is it to learn Arabic anyway?</p>
<p>It sounds like everyone's voting for Arabic. After thinking about it, I think Arabic is more interesting. Thanks!</p>
<p>Majayi, it seems like we might be in the same language classes at Duke. :)
I don't know about the difficulty, but Duke offered some really interesting study abroad programs dealing with Arabic.</p>
<p>The irony is that in the Middle East the second language they learned was French so to keep relations with Europe; it is true that French is the language of international relations. Arabic sounds good and would be great if you wanted to work soley within those Arabic speaking countries. However, if you move outside of that paradigm French becomes the predominant language.</p>
<p>Arabic seems to be more useful nowadays. It's also more interesting, in my opinion, and it'll probably be easier to learn French in the future (night classes or something) if you're still interested.</p>
<p>Actually Arabic is one of the hardest languages to become fluent in because there are different dialects and only one standard written Arabic language. So in your first year, you won't be doing much speaking at all, more of reading and writing.</p>
<p>Warbler - does your college have a shopping period? You could sit in in both the French and Arabic classes for a week to get a feel of which you're more suited to, then decide which to take.</p>
<p>If you already know some hebrew or aramaic, Arabic should not be too difficult, because hebrew and arabis have the same relationship as spanish and italian do, except arabic has different letters and looks very different from hebrew. </p>
<p>I would say that you should pick French, though, because unless you want to work specifically in those countries that solely speak Arabic, French is more useful. besides, there is so much more literature in french. In whatever field you look into, philosophy, comparative literature, math, physics, and on and on, many innovators speak french. So if you want to read text in its purest form, it will be much more helpful to learn french. Ever want to read notre damus?</p>
<p>Everybody and their cousin learns French. You can learn French anyday, but now while your brain is still intellectually flexible go with Arabic, which is more challenging due its to different alphabet, sound scheme, and grammar.</p>
<p>To counter joshjmgs argument about original French texts, lots of very important academic texts were written during the Golden Age of Islam from the 9th to the 13th century in the very Standard Arabic that you can learn today. Try reading 17th century French, no easier than trying to read 17th century English.</p>
<p>French. I don't know if this is true, but I heard that there are so many dialects of Arabic that learning it just while in college isn't going to help you all that much (at least, not any more than French) with getting a State dept. job etc.</p>
<p>Well, as far as the different Arabic dialects go, Duke offers several courses and a couple different dialects. I'm not sure I'm going to do anything with Arabic or French; I'll have German and Spanish for usefulness. It's mostly out of interest.</p>
<p>gianievve, that's a really good idea. I'm not sure it offers a shopping period or not, but I'll find out!</p>
<p>Shopping period just refers to the period between the first day of classes to the last day of add/drop courses.</p>
<p>"Then again, I do want to be involved in international relations and national security. In that aspect it seems that Arabic is a more suitable language."</p>
<p>We will always be dealing with Mexico - they speak Spanish.
Castro will fall soon (b/c he will die...), throwing Cuba into political turmoil, miles off the coast of the United States, you can bet the US will be taking heavy interest - Cuba speaks Spanish.
The drug cartells in South America, especially in Columbia are huge, and there are massive efforts going on regarding them - Columbia speaks Spanish.
Chavez, the dictator of Venezuela recently made public statements about the possibility of Venezuela become a nuclear power, easily within range of striking the US - Venezuela speaks Spanish.</p>
<p>...just sayin', don't discount Spanish</p>
<p>anyway... if the OP is just learning for fun, learn the language where you think you're more likely to go sometime in your life =)</p>
<p>/the CIA hires from practically every major. They need people to do all fo these: <a href="http://cia.gov/employment/viewall.html%5B/url%5D">http://cia.gov/employment/viewall.html</a></p>