FSI Language Difficulty Calculator
Calculate weeks and years to reach professional fluency in any language based on FSI data.
Categories range from 600 to 2,200 hours from English.
Time to Fluency
FSI Language Categories (for English speakers)
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) groups languages by difficulty:
- Category 1 (~600 hrs): Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish
- Category 2 (~900 hrs): German, Indonesian, Swahili, Malaysian
- Category 3 (~1,100 hrs): Polish, Russian, Turkish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Vietnamese, Thai
- Category 4 (~2,200 hrs): Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean
FSI uses 30-hour classroom weeks. At 1 hour/day self-study, multiply weeks by 5.