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Arabic or Russian?

Which one should I devote my time to learning? I know parts of both very well and seem to have a natural click with them, I pronounce very native, more so with arabic but the Russian I know is still good. I am planning to focus on arabic but is this a good idea? I feel like Arabic is much more useful and widely used, I can use it in about 10-15 countries and its spoken across Europe & America where as Russian is a bit of a niche
Russian is used in large parts of Eastern Europe including the Baltics, Besserabia/Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, the Caucaus, Central Asia, Mongolia and beyond. If you can understand Russian you can also understand Bulgarian, Serbo-.Croatian, Macedonian, Mongolian, even say some Polish and Czech. Russian all the way, but maybe i'm not impartial given i'm a russophile
(edited 4 years ago)
Original post by Ferrograd
Russian is used in large parts of Eastern Europe including the Baltics, Besserabia/Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, the Caucaus, Central Asia, Mongolia and beyond. If you can understand Russian you can also understand Bulgarian, Serbo-.Croatian, Macedonian, Mongolian, even say some Polish and Czech. Russian all the way, but maybe i'm not impartial given i'm a russophile

None of that is true.
Original post by BrainMan9
None of that is true.

Yes it is.

Look at the percentage of Russian speakers in the baltics and ukraine. In Belarus most people speak it. In Transinistra in Moldova most people speak it. It's spoken in basically every former Soviet Republic. And if you can grasp russian, it's not hard to learn one of the south slavic languages, albeit polish or czech is different because its latinised, with some similarities but its actually harder to learn polish than russian.
Original post by 3121
Which one should I devote my time to learning? I know parts of both very well and seem to have a natural click with them, I pronounce very native, more so with arabic but the Russian I know is still good. I am planning to focus on arabic but is this a good idea? I feel like Arabic is much more useful and widely used, I can use it in about 10-15 countries and its spoken across Europe & America where as Russian is a bit of a niche

Lets face it. There is no place you will ever visit where people won't any speak English. Also, you will never understand any redneck dialects of arabic anyway and everyone with nice textbook Russian/Arabic will be speaking English quite well... Russian as a second laguage means zero understanding of Czech or Polish.
Original post by Ferrograd
Yes it is.

Look at the percentage of Russian speakers in the baltics and ukraine. In Belarus most people speak it. In Transinistra in Moldova most people speak it. It's spoken in basically every former Soviet Republic. And if you can grasp russian, it's not hard to learn one of the south slavic languages, albeit polish or czech is different because its latinised, with some similarities but its actually harder to learn polish than russian.

The real percentage russian speakers is much lower that in statistics. All coutries occupied by Russians had russian as a compulsory second language. Everyone 40+ should be able to speak Russian, pretty much no one does. It's like welsh in Wales. Some of them can count to 10 and ask for direction to the nearest hotel but thats about it.
" it's not hard to learn one of the south slavic languages" ...not every language is as simple as English. This will be 10+ years trip allwoing you to live in Slovenia but not Slovakia.
Original post by BrainMan9
Lets face it. There is no place you will ever visit where people won't any speak English. Also, you will never understand any redneck dialects of arabic anyway and everyone with nice textbook Russian/Arabic will be speaking English quite well... Russian as a second laguage means zero understanding of Czech or Polish.

No it doesn't, but it makes it easier to learn those west slavic branches given they are related. It's like its easy for English speakers to learn German because we are a Germanic language, its also easy to learn french or spanish too given they have also made it into our language.
Original post by Ferrograd
No it doesn't, but it makes it easier to learn those west slavic branches given they are related. It's like its easy for English speakers to learn German because we are a Germanic language, its also easy to learn french or spanish too given they have also made it into our language.

This is just being delusional.
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Avatar for mxo.
mxo.
17
by your description it seems you’re leaning more towards Arabic and if you feel it’s right for you, then go with your gut (:
Original post by mxo.
by your description it seems you’re leaning more towards Arabic and if you feel it’s right for you, then go with your gut (:

Both are kind of pointless.
Russian. I think it sounds exotic than Arabic!
Original post by BrainMan9
Both are kind of pointless.

You think people can just get by with english.
Original post by Ferrograd
You think people can just get by with english.

Yes, they can.

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