<p>I know this is random, but which language would be more useful to a science major? German is good for chemistry majors to read scientific papers and thesis but beside that, which foreign langauge is good for scientists to learn? Chinese or Arabic?</p>
<p>Chinese is probably better to learn. However, I believe most “professional” papers would have been translated to English so that more people could read them.</p>
<p>I’ve read on here that Chinese is taken by fluent speakers at UVA making the class really hard.</p>
<p>Almost half of S1’s class dropped out by the end of the first week.</p>
<p>Considering how difficult the Arabic and Chinese courses are, I wouldn’t take either unless I was really passionate about learning the language. It’s going to take a lot of studying and reviewing to reach any sort of proficiency and it’s easy to lose interest quickly if you’re just learning the language in case you might need it later. On the other hand, if you are really passionate about one of the languages, let that decide what you want to take–start looking into courses in whichever language you’re personally more interested in learning about. Remember that you can always learn languages on your own in the future, and you also have the option of auditing language courses as well.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I took a semester of Chinese and really enjoyed it – it was a great change from my normal engineering classes. I think the key to any language class is getting a great professor, so look for that too when you’re making your choice (thecourseforum.com is your friend)</p>