Suggest me something that isn't western european. This isn't for career at all, just for broadening my understanding of the world, especially of cultures overlooked in the west. What would I have access to with this language that most people who only speak english don't? Tell me about good books, movies, idioms, philosophies, political perspective or emotions that I would learn about. I really value speaking to people face to face and being able to travel to where it's spoken. Is there a language I missed? Which one should I go with?
Some of my current ideas:
Russian: Probably one of the most interesting cultures, travel to russia would be tough which is a huge barrier for me. Finding native speakers in my area might be tough, not impossible. I have learned the alphabet and I dont think it will be as hard as some of the following ones.
Arabic: Relatively easy to find native speakers my age in my area. Travel to an arabic country is possible and safer than russia. AMAZING food. The culture doesn't excite me as much as russian at the moment, maybe someone can change my mind!!
Mandarin: The easiest to find native speakers my age, many stores where I live have items/menus fully in mandarin. I don't think china needs much explaining, 3500 years of history. I also have the opportunity to do an exchange there sept 2026.
French*: I have the biggest head start, still not great (A2), but the people don't seem as warm. I cannot handle being degraded by a parisian for just giving french a try thats a big red flag. Also where I'm from it's just a resume bullet point never actually used, however I could easily go to quebec city and immerse myself it's not far. I just put it on here because maybe there are lessons learned that generalize across just speaking something non english that might be useful.
Other: Maybe another slavic language for a country I could travel to easier (polish czech). Maybe an indian language like hindi, which I have no idea about, but it would be cool to speak in canada as a white guy lol.
TLDR; keep learning french with low motivation but high access OR start from scratch on something else less common but cooler (russian, arabic, mandarin, other....)
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