
I'd like to be able to learn Chinese, but I think I'd send myself around the bend trying to learn the syntax and the correct characters
Sentence structure in Mandarin is often surprisingly similar to English.
The trouble with Asian languages is that whilst they may have a large number of native speakers, they are very geographically limited. Thanks to imperialism, many European languages are spoken all over the world. French and Spanish are each widely spoken in 20-30 different countries on multiple continents, Portuguese in about a dozen. Russian is spoken all over the FSU.
Arabic is the only non-European language that comes close.
Mandarin is great but it's not even the primary language everywhere in mainland China. It sort of limits your options a bit.
Fair call but I have been surprised by the number of people I have met who can speak Mandarin. It would be interesting to see the stats because it seems like >50% of people in many of my uni classes are from China/Singapore/Taiwan (all Mandarin-speaking nations). Brisbane seems to be choc-full of working tourists from these countries as well.