<p>Do you have any familiarity with Mandarin? Or other character based language? Are you comfortable learning a different alphabet? Are you able to discern tones in tonal languages? (It helps if you play an instrument like violin.)</p>
<p>One can learn Cyrillic or Arabic letters and make words and read words. You will not learn many characters in a 4 year college course of study - unless it’s by far your main concentration and even then. My daughters speak Mandarin. Well, one does, the other kind of. Reading and writing characters is hard. The grammar is totally different because characters are words and concepts not letters that make words. You may learn to speak reasonably well, if you can hear the tones, but you will not be able to read and write.</p>
<p>Some Asian languages have as many as 14 tones. If that is a strength, then go for it. If not, then avoid them.</p>