Ranking of the language difficulties of the Foreign Service Institute
Ranking of the language difficulties of the Foreign Service Institute
The Ranking of the language difficulties of the Foreign Service Institute is an indication of how long an English native speaker would take to master a number of different languages.
There are five categories that are arranged from the simplest to the difficultest, depending on how many lessons a learner would need to achieve professional work skills (i.e. level 3 on the scale of the Interagency Language Roundtable).
ranking of the language difficulties of the Foreign Service Institute
The language-swiveling table below is based on the FSI language of language ranking of the US State Department.
See also: Which languages are most difficult to learn?
Category I: 23-24 weeks (575-600 hours) languages that are closely related to English
Afrikaansdänischniedrandrance French -like norwegian pathic Portuguity -Romanian -Spanish Swedish
Category II: 30 weeks (750 hours) spoke similarly English
german
Category III: 36 weeks (900 hours) spoke with linguistic and/or cultural differences to the English
Indonesian Malaysischsuaheli
Category IV: 44 weeks (1100 hours) spoke with considerable linguistic and/or cultural differences to the English
Albanianianamharmharmenianazerbaijanijanijanijanijanijanijanijanijanibosnianburmuratianczech*Estonian*Finnish*Georgiankhebrewhindi*Hungarianicelandickhmerlaolatvianlithuanianianmacedonian*Mongoliannepalipashtopersian (darsi, Farsi, Farsi, Farsi, Farsi, Tajik) PolishhrussianSerbansinhalaslovaksloventagalog*Thaiturkishukrainianurduuzbek*Vietnamesexhosazulu
Category V: 88 weeks (2200 hours) languages that are extremely difficult for English native speakers
Arabic*Japanese Korean Cantonesian (Chinese) Mandarin (Chinese)
* Usually more difficult than other languages in the same category.
The data comes from the Foreign Service Institute Language Difficulty (FSI) of the US State Department.
cover picture: Luftikus/Shutterstock
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