What Language Should I Learn

One press picks a language, with where it is spoken and how long it takes to learn.

What Language Should I Learn

  1. SinhalaSri Lanka. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
All 66

Next step Pick a trip to use it onDraw from 238 languages

How it works

Press the button for one of the 66 languages on the US Foreign Service Institute's difficulty list, with where it is spoken and how long its students take to learn it.

Read the full guide

Easy, medium or a long project

The Foreign Service Institute sorts languages by the weeks of full-time class an English speaker needs to work in them. Closest to English means 24 to 30 weeks; Hardest for English speakers means 88. After your first press, the list beside the button narrows the draw to one of those groups or to a region.

What languages should I learn together?

Set the count to 3 and keep two that share a region, such as Spanish and Portuguese or Hindi and Urdu, which are close relatives: one makes the other easier.

Tips
  • A language spoken where you live, work or travel is easier to keep up, because you can use it every week.

Questions and answers

What is the easiest language for English speakers to learn?

On the FSI list, Danish, Dutch, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian and Swedish take 24 weeks, the shortest time. French and Spanish take 30.

What are the hardest languages to learn?

Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese and Korean, at 88 weeks each, more than three times as long as Italian. Much of that time goes on a new writing system.

How long does it take to learn a language?

The weeks here are full-time classes, about 25 hours a week, for adults whose job is to learn. Learning an hour a day takes far longer, so pick one you will enjoy.

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All 66 languages

Closest to English 9

  • Danish Denmark. Category I: 24 weeks of full-time class.
  • Dutch The Netherlands and Belgium. Category I: 24 weeks of full-time class.
  • French France and much of West and Central Africa. Category I: 30 weeks of full-time class.
  • Italian Italy and Switzerland. Category I: 24 weeks of full-time class.
  • Norwegian Norway. Category I: 24 weeks of full-time class.
  • Portuguese Brazil, Portugal, Angola and Mozambique. Category I: 24 weeks of full-time class.
  • Romanian Romania and Moldova. Category I: 24 weeks of full-time class.
  • Spanish Spain and most of Latin America. Category I: 30 weeks of full-time class.
  • Swedish Sweden and Finland. Category I: 24 weeks of full-time class.

About 36 weeks 5

  • German Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Category II: about 36 weeks of full-time class.
  • Haitian Creole Haiti. Category II: about 36 weeks of full-time class.
  • Indonesian Indonesia. Category II: about 36 weeks of full-time class.
  • Malay Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore. Category II: about 36 weeks of full-time class.
  • Swahili Tanzania, Kenya and much of East Africa. Category II: about 36 weeks of full-time class.
Show all 66 languages (52 more)

About 44 weeks 47

  • Albanian Albania and Kosovo. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Amharic Ethiopia. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Armenian Armenia. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Azerbaijani Azerbaijan and northwest Iran. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Bengali Bangladesh and eastern India. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Bulgarian Bulgaria. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Burmese Myanmar. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Czech Czechia. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Dari Afghanistan. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Estonian Estonia. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Finnish Finland. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Georgian Georgia, the country. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Greek Greece and Cyprus. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Hebrew Israel. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Hindi India. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Hungarian Hungary. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Icelandic Iceland. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Kazakh Kazakhstan. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Khmer Cambodia. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Kurdish Parts of Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Kyrgyz Kyrgyzstan. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Lao Laos. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Latvian Latvia. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Lithuanian Lithuania. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Macedonian North Macedonia. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Mongolian Mongolia. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Nepali Nepal. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Persian (Farsi) Iran. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Polish Poland. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Russian Russia and much of Central Asia. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Serbo-Croatian Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Sinhala Sri Lanka. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Slovak Slovakia. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Slovenian Slovenia. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Somali Somalia and parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Tagalog The Philippines. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Tajik Tajikistan. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Tamil Southern India, Sri Lanka and Singapore. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Telugu Southern India. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Thai Thailand. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Tibetan Tibet and nearby Himalayan areas. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Turkish Turkey and Cyprus. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Turkmen Turkmenistan. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Ukrainian Ukraine. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Urdu Pakistan and India. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Uzbek Uzbekistan. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.
  • Vietnamese Vietnam. Category III: about 44 weeks of full-time class.

Hardest for English speakers 5

  • Arabic North Africa and the Middle East. Category IV: about 88 weeks of full-time class.
  • Cantonese Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong. Category IV: about 88 weeks of full-time class.
  • Japanese Japan. Category IV: about 88 weeks of full-time class.
  • Korean South Korea and North Korea. Category IV: about 88 weeks of full-time class.
  • Mandarin Chinese China and Taiwan. Category IV: about 88 weeks of full-time class.

How this list was compiled: All 66 languages on the US State Department's Foreign Service Institute list, with the category and the weeks of full-time class the FSI gives for an English-speaking diplomat to reach General Professional Proficiency (Speaking-3/Reading-3): Category I 24 to 30 weeks (600 to 750 class hours, weeks per language as listed), Category II about 36 weeks (900 hours), Category III about 44 weeks (1,100 hours; the FSI says that list is not exhaustive), Category IV 88 weeks (2,200 hours). Read on 2026-09-23 from the Internet Archive copy of https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/ (snapshot 20241229203515; state.gov answers scripts with 403). Names follow the FSI list except Farsi, shown as Persian (Farsi), Tajiki, shown as Tajik, and Chinese – Cantonese and Chinese – Mandarin, shown as Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese. Where each language is mainly spoken is our own short summary, not a full list of countries; the region groups are ours (Hebrew and Arabic sit under Africa and the Middle East). Licence: own work