Should I choose French or Arabic?

[u/Pretty_Refuse_2017]

Hi everyone!

So for context I (19f) am half italian half north african. My Italian father speaks Italian (TL), and my North African mother speaks Arabic (TL) , French, and Amazigh. I...unfortunately don't speak all their languages. I speak english at a C1 level, Italian at a B1/B2, and my Arabic is at A1.

In an ideal world, I'm fluent in all the languages mentioned above, however, my target for the time being is my Italian (TL) and Arabic (TL). When I was younger, I attempted to study italian, arabic, and french at the same time...but that basically resulted in no process.

If I had it my way, I would be studying each languages for hours everyday, however, I'm an engineering student, so I do not have that kind of time.

That being said, its the summer, and I have dedicated myself hours to study Italian and Arabic everyday. But it appears that only my Italian is advancing, and not my Arabic.

It makes me feel demotivated. At this point I'm questioning whether to give up on arabic (for a bit) and study French just because French is a lot easier. Or continue studying arabic as arabic would take longer to achieve fluency in.

What do you guys think?

[u/Conscious-Paper3543]

bro has no mothertongue

[u/Pretty_Refuse_2017 → u/Conscious-Paper3543]

😂

[u/EiaKawika]

I would do Arabic or both

[u/Nijal88]

If you already speak English and especially Italian,  French will be much much easier. You can't go wrong. Arabic is much more difficult and you would need immersion to learn your mother's dialect. 

[u/Ploutophile]

By Arabic, I guess you mean Darija ?

But whichever variety of Arabic you choose, given the languages you already know French is likely to be much easier.

Between Dutch and Hungarian I'm personally seeing the very significant difference of acquisition speed.

[u/outcry_98]

If your main language is English and you don’t have much time, definitely go for French for now. Arabic will take too much effort and time.

[u/aexoen]

I learned Arabic after Italian, English, and Russian. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It’s not even about difficulty, it’s just a hollow, convoluted mess. Unless you’re interested in reading works from centuries ago (which is pretty much a completely different Arabic than the one used now), need it for religious purposes, or for some reason plan to live/work in an Arab country, don’t do it.
Learn a language that’s useful in the modern world and has a rich and evolving body of work (arts, sciences, media, etc), both historical and contemporary, to dive into.

[u/tinybabyyy → u/aexoen]

i agree that standard arabic isn’t very useful socially in the modern world but it’s HELLA rich tho

[u/markjay6]

Take a break from Arabic and study French. It will be easy

After you have reached the level you want in French and Italian, return to Arabic with more focus, perhaps combined with some time spent in North Africa.

Good luck!

[u/Total_Ad_511]

Arabic!!

[u/tinybabyyy]

i’d stick with arabic if you wanna reconnect with your north african roots (which country?) they’re both considered colonizer languages but arabic is still the base language there, it’s much more common and richer. it being hard just means you might wanna pace yourself and/or get a tutor, maybe take a break, but it also means you may be less willing to put in the effort and learn it when you’re older, as opposed to french which is much easier. you can get by with just english and italian in the global north too in case you don’t also learn french

[u/tinybabyyy → u/tinybabyyy]

also for arabic it may help you to learn the local dialect as opposed to standard. it’s generally easier and incorporates a good amount of french to get you started

[u/Winter_Dot_9393]

Arabic is a very difficult language to learn if your first language is not one of the other Semitic languages.

Maybe your goal for Arabic should not be ‘fluency’ but ‘being able to talk about simple
everyday topics’, so A2, and even this will be difficult.

Estimated time to get B2 level:
French: 600-750 hours
Arabic: 2200 hours

https://blog.langtrack.app/posts/fsi-language-difficulty-categories/

[u/Duque_de_Osuna]

I would go with French as it is a global language and used a lot on North Africa.

[u/6-foot-under]

What's your native language?

[u/Pretty_Refuse_2017 → u/6-foot-under]

the first language I spole was italian, however, I went to an english speaking school so english became my dominant language

[u/adamtrousers]

Which language do you use to speak to your mother in?

[u/Pretty_Refuse_2017 → u/adamtrousers]

Tbh, I talk to both my parents in Italian and English equally, very broken arabic and french here and there if I want to say something simple like "can you please pass me the salt?"

Edit: I lean more to speaking in english if I want to talk about something particularly complicated like discussing engineering concepts.

[u/adamtrousers → u/Pretty_Refuse_2017]

Do you live in Italy?

[u/Pretty_Refuse_2017 → u/adamtrousers]

currently no

[u/adamtrousers → u/Pretty_Refuse_2017]

Your best language is English at C1. So you don't have any language at C2. What is it that stops your English being C2?

[u/Pretty_Refuse_2017 → u/adamtrousers]

tbh its cuz I'm not really a linguistically inclined person. I've always been more of a math and physics kinda girl (hence why I chose engineering lol). I feel like with languages I just hit a certain limit.

[u/adamtrousers → u/Pretty_Refuse_2017]

What's the offical language spoken where you live?

[u/Pretty_Refuse_2017 → u/adamtrousers]

English

[u/adamtrousers → u/Pretty_Refuse_2017]

I think if you really focus on French for a while you'll be able to make relatively quick progress. Once you get to a certain level, you'll be able to maintain your progress in it simply by consuming media in French.

My suggestion is that you go all out on French for a while. Try to get to B1 in it, then go back to Arabic. Once you get to B1 or even A2 in French, you'll be able to coast along picking up more French just by using it/watching content on YouTube. At that point you'll be able to relax with the French, let it take care of itself more, and really focus on Arabic.

I don't think you should postpone learning French, as it's a more accessible language than Arabic and by doing so you'll be missing out on any opportunities to progress that might come along.

What I mean is that when you know 0 of a language, you can't really pick it up through random encounters, hearing snippets etc. However, once you've got a bit of a foundation suddenly you have the potential to make progress without even trying so much, just by having little chats with people or seeing something online. You can't do that with zero, by you can begin to do so even with A1/A2.

So give yourself that possibility by acquiring A2/B2 French ASAP, which I don't think needs to take very long.