Foreign Service Institute Language Difficulty Rankings

Foreign Service Institute Language Difficulty Rankings

The Foreign Service Institute's language difficulty rankings are an indication of how long it would take a native English speaker to master a range of different languages.

There are five categories, ordered from easiest to most difficult, depending on how many hours of instruction a learner would need to reach professional working proficiency (i.e. Level 3 on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale).

Foreign Service Institute Language Difficulty Rankings

The language difficulty chart below is based on the U.S. Department of State's FSI language difficulty rankings.

See also: Which languages ​​are the hardest to learn?

Category I: 23-24 weeks (575-600 hours) Languages ​​closely related to English

AfrikaansDanishDutchFrenchItalianNorwegianPortugueseRomanianSpanishSwedish

Category II: 30 weeks (750 hours) Languages ​​similar to English

German

Category III: 36 weeks (900 hours) Languages ​​with linguistic and/or cultural differences to English

IndonesianMalaysianSwahili

Category IV: 44 weeks (1100 hours)Languages ​​with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences to English

AlbanianAmharicArmenianAzerbaijaniBengaliBosnianBulgarianBurmeseCroatianCzech*Estonian*Finnish*GeorgianGreekHebrewHindi*HungarianIcelandicKhmerLaoLatvianLithuanianMacedonian*MongolianNepaliPashtoPersian (Dari, Farsi, Tajik)PolishRussianSerbianSinhalaSlovakSlovenianTagalog*ThaiTurkishUkrainianUrduUzbek*VietnameseXhosaZulu

Category V: 88 weeks (2200 hours) of languages ​​that are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers

Arabic*JapaneseKoreanCantonese (Chinese)Mandarin (Chinese)

* Typically more difficult than other languages ​​in the same category.

Data comes from the US Department of State's Foreign Service Institute Language Difficulty (FSI).

Cover photo: Luftikus/Shutterstock

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