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Speech recognition in competing masker speech can be influenced by the similarity between the target and masker languages, and the listener's familiarity with them. Generally, recognition is more difficult when the target and masker are identical or similar languages. While greater familiarity with the target language is beneficial, familiarity with the masker can be detrimental. In this study, Australian English monolinguals and Arabic–English bilinguals completed an English word monitoring task presented with different masker languages. The English masker led to the poorest accuracy and response times, but there was no evidence that the degree of typological similarity between the target and masker also affected word monitoring. The Arabic–English bilinguals, while slower, were not less accurate than the monolinguals, nor were they hindered by the Arabic masker. Cognitive load, which was manipulated by a digit preload secondary task, did not seem to affect word monitoring outcomes.