Chinese vs Arabic: which should you learn?

Estimates for a native English speaker, following the US Foreign Service Institute’s groupings. Languages the Institute does not rank are placed beside their closest relatives. Your own pace will differ.

• You want the largest first-language community of any language and a major business language.
• You will use it in mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore and Chinese communities worldwide.

Watch out for: tones and characters; spoken grammar is simpler than most people expect.

• You want reach across a vast region and strong demand in diplomacy, energy and translation.
• You will use it in more than twenty countries across the Middle East and North Africa.

Watch out for: spoken dialects differ from the formal written standard, and the sounds are new.

Chinese. It takes more hours than most European languages. Tones and characters are the main hurdles. Spoken grammar is simpler than people expect, with no verb conjugation or plurals to learn.

Arabic. It takes longer than European languages. The script runs right to left and the sounds are new. Sentence-by-sentence practice with audio makes both easier.

In both, the quickest fix for pronunciation is the same: hear a whole sentence, say it out loud and check how close you were. That is the loop 4ToSpeak runs on every sentence.

Chinese and Arabic are not close relatives, so learning one saves little time on the other. Pick the one you will use soonest, get to a comfortable conversation, and add the second later.

If you cannot decide, start both for a week at 15 minutes a day. After seven days you will know which one you look forward to, and motivation matters more than the difference in hours.

Start Chinese or start Arabic, both free with no card.

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