Arabic, Japanese or Russian?

Ok, so first, my impression of the language being "soul-destroying" might a bit a bit exaggerated, but it's definitely not only me, as a lot of my friends find it hard, and I think the drop out rate can also say a lot. Just for my university, out of 70 students at the beginning of the year, about 40 of them dropped out, I'm still pondering whether to give up or not, you'll find some people on TSR that have dropped out, and I discussed with friends at other universities (Cambridge, Oxford, Leeds, SOAS) telling me that often people dropped Arabic to focus on their other language. So yes, it is a rather difficult language, especially when you only have experience in European languages, as the OP may have.

I'm just reproducing a "worst case scenario" here, as the OP wants to study it as a part of their degree, and I'm saying that I wouldn't advise it at all. Having studied MSA will indeed give you the basis, but you can by no mean use it like Norwegian and Danish or Spanish and Italian, as you probably know that some are mutually incomprehensible, therefore if you focus on one dialect, you won't be able to use it everywhere through the Middle East region. You have to know what you want to do with your Arabic, it may be fine if you stick to Egyptian Arabic, but you'll have to make a choice between Gulf Arabic and Maghrebian Arabic and it doesn't give you as much choice as you might have first expected by choosing to study Arabic. Of course, you can pretend you'll just stick to MSA and speak it all the time (well, if you manage you get a great level, which according to several of my teachers shouldn't be expected after only a degree), but most people won't know it, and some will even misuse it (yes, some political men can't use their case endings properly and there is vocabulary you can use but that nobody will understand, as it also had been nicely said by our native teachers during lessons).

So it's up to you, but I guess these are the kind of things one would like to know before starting a degree in Arabic.

日本語を勉強してる。 How about this; Japanese doesn't have plurals, very few masculine/feminine specific words and the past/present/future tense system is the easiest I've come across. Plus it looks hella cool to write.

I'm enjoying learning Japanese, it's a nice mix of challenging areas and convenient differences from English, but I can't really offer advice concerning comparing it to the other languages... Sorry.

Ok, so first, my impression of the language being "soul-destroying" might a bit a bit exaggerated, but it's definitely not only me, as a lot of my friends find it hard, and I think the drop out rate can also say a lot. Just for my university, out of 70 students at the beginning of the year, about 40 of them dropped out, I'm still pondering whether to give up or not, you'll find some people on TSR that have dropped out, and I discussed with friends at other universities (Cambridge, Oxford, Leeds, SOAS) telling me that often people dropped Arabic to focus on their other language. So yes, it is a rather difficult language, especially when you only have experience in European languages, as the OP may have.

I'm just reproducing a "worst case scenario" here, as the OP wants to study it as a part of their degree, and I'm saying that I wouldn't advise it at all. Having studied MSA will indeed give you the basis, but you can by no mean use it like Norwegian and Danish or Spanish and Italian, as you probably know that some are mutually incomprehensible, therefore if you focus on one dialect, you won't be able to use it everywhere through the Middle East region. You have to know what you want to do with your Arabic, it may be fine if you stick to Egyptian Arabic, but you'll have to make a choice between Gulf Arabic and Maghrebian Arabic and it doesn't give you as much choice as you might have first expected by choosing to study Arabic. Of course, you can pretend you'll just stick to MSA and speak it all the time (well, if you manage you get a great level, which according to several of my teachers shouldn't be expected after only a degree), but most people won't know it, and some will even misuse it (yes, some political men can't use their case endings properly and there is vocabulary you can use but that nobody will understand, as it also had been nicely said by our native teachers during lessons).

So it's up to you, but I guess these are the kind of things one would like to know before starting a degree in Arabic.

Plus Japanese is so nice to listen to. There were two Japanese women on the bus the other day and they were gabbling away, I wish I could understand lol.

Ok, so first, my impression of the language being "soul-destroying" might a bit a bit exaggerated, but it's definitely not only me, as a lot of my friends find it hard, and I think the drop out rate can also say a lot. Just for my university, out of 70 students at the beginning of the year, about 40 of them dropped out, I'm still pondering whether to give up or not, you'll find some people on TSR that have dropped out, and I discussed with friends at other universities (Cambridge, Oxford, Leeds, SOAS) telling me that often people dropped Arabic to focus on their other language. So yes, it is a rather difficult language, especially when you only have experience in European languages, as the OP may have.

Japanese is the same tbh. Its even harder than Arabic I would image because the writing system is so complex.

I think something like 35 to 40 have dropped out of our course. Put it this way, there is a difference between simply learning a language and then learning intensively as part of a degree. They tend to squeeze most of the fun out from about week 6. If you wanna study the basics, then go for it. But if you wanna learn it quite intensively and get good quickly, then buy a heart monitor.