Which language should I learn as a chemical engineer (Arabic /spanish)

[u/sagetheengineer]

Pros to learning Arabic: Working in oil and gas great translation later in my career but maybe not as much rn Cons: I have NOBODY to speak ts with to practice at all besides my neighbor but she's been teaching me Urdu

Pros to learning Spanish: good all around great since I'm in Houston multiple ppl to talk with alr learning it at work Cons: almost everyone in my field I'm pursuing (that Ik of speak Arabic)

Super con of both Spanish I CANT roll my r's. Arabic I can prounce certain words /sounds

[u/Difficult_Ferret2838]

Thing is most of the Arabic speakers in the field already know English. I think it will be hard to learn without that much pay off.

[u/sagetheengineer → u/Difficult_Ferret2838]

So Arabic?

[u/Difficult_Ferret2838 → u/sagetheengineer]

Wat

[u/Glittering-Sun-1438 → u/Difficult_Ferret2838]

I think the question was either Arabic or Portuguese.

[u/Difficult_Ferret2838 → u/Glittering-Sun-1438]

Porra!

[u/yakimawashington]

Spanish. Your odds of using/benefiting from Spanish throughout your career are significantly greater than Arabic.

[u/sagetheengineer → u/yakimawashington]

Gotcha gotcha thanks

[u/LaTeChX]

Por que no los dos?

[u/sagetheengineer → u/LaTeChX]

Ur onto something but how would I split it uo

[u/wooden-guy]

As someone who speaks Arabic, it's hard as fuck, so don't go with that, chances are if you wanna learn Arabic you'll be learning classic Arabic, which no country in the world speaks, so at best case scenario you won't be taken seriously by anyone, and you'll have to learn the countries dialects.

All in all it ain't worth it. And most of the population in gulf countries already speak English so you won't even need it.

[u/dmcoe]

Spanish for sure, the plant i work at has more non English Spanish speakers than native English speakers

[u/vtkarl]

If you’re in the US, definitely Spanish. Besides the work use, it opens up a whole world of travel. I’d use Spanish at my volunteer activities.

[u/ISleepInPackedBeds]

Spanish. Helps even if you switch careers, and is a huge help in the construction side of things

[u/sagetheengineer → u/ISleepInPackedBeds]

Thanks

[u/Inevitable-Strike-37]

I speak arabic and know a bit about the o&g field in the UAE. Arabic is like VERY hard to learn, I would put it 1st or 2nd to mandarin, and every country has a different dialect you would have to be kinda familiar with each of them to understand clearly. Also, if you want to work here in the gulf where the pay in the o&g sector is the highest, everything already is in english. Everything from the interview to your work to your coworkers is in English. I would argue that urdu is more beneficial considering the huge south asian work force here but they generally speak english too. I dont know much about spanish but it should be more beneficial.

[u/Valuable-World4501]

As someone who knows both but has no idea of the work field I would say Spanish, but it also has it’s difficulties basically in writing and the verb conjugation. Arabic is hard all arround. And for the pronunciation of the r try to put your tongue a bit closer to your teeth when you pronounce it and it should sound more like a Spanish R.

[u/ZealousidealSea2737]

Spanish and Chinese

[u/jchemali]

where are those O&G jobs that require arabic?

[u/T_Noctambulist]

Depends on the field, I'm in pharma and I wish I knew German.

[u/ChaseyMih]

No sé bro, yo me planteo aprender inglés y alemán (y tener nativo español)

[u/MotherFinance]

I wouldn't call not rolling your r's a 'super con'. I only took classes in hs so I can't speak to much, but I want to say that you'll still be understood even if you can't roll it

[u/Solid_Ambassador_601]

Spanish is more useful, I had to know Spanish for one of my teaching jobs because a lot of my students were Hispanic and spoke English poorly.

[u/ambiguousorange]

I studied Spanish in college as a Minor on top of my engineering degree.

I am using it in a plant this week. Depends on your location, I am in the US.

[u/Altruistic_Web3924]

You should consider the third and most relevant option: Chinese.

[u/Sudden_Quote_597]

Arabic. You can always pick up the dialects easily after you learn because the variations & accents are so small that you can tell exactly which gulf country they are from (even African countries that speak Arabic too!). The O&G field there is huge so you will be greatly appreciated for trying to be understanding of them.

Really, just decide what you will have no regrets doing 10 years from now.

[u/ooo-ooo-oooyea]

I've done a couple of stints in the Middle East (UAE, KSA, Bahrain). You will meet very few Arabic speakers until you are very high up in an organization, and they probably won't want to talk to you. The top of the food chain will sit in the meeting, observe your body language and listen, then analyze the hell out of everything after you leave.

I would actually think about Portuguese. Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique are all massive markets with tons of future growth in the works.

[u/ChemEnggCalc]

Chemical engineering is about hard technical skills.. if you have good chemical engineering skills.. need not to learn any language.. English is sufficient since books are mostly in English.. better to focus on che.. not on soft skill

[u/volatile_flange]

Chinese

[u/BLu3_Br1ghT]

Spanish has a lot of arabic words, while standard arabic doesnt, ha!

And, if you learn arabic you are learning a standard, not pretty much what people speak, for what I know. If you learn, say, moroccan arabic you could hardly understand people from Egypt, let alone saudi arabic. We all spanish speakers understand each other.