Hours
FSI Language Difficulty Ranking: How Long Each Language Takes
The State Department’s Foreign Service Institute groups languages by how long English speakers take to reach professional working proficiency (ILR 3, speaking and listening). Category I (Spanish, French): 24–30 weeks, about 552–690 class hours. Category II (German): about 36 weeks, 828 hours. Category III (Greek, Russian): about 44 weeks, 1,012 hours. Category IV (Arabic, Mandarin): 88 weeks, 2,200 hours.
The four categories
A typical week in that program is 23 class hours plus 17 hours of self-study. Source: state.gov/foreign-language-training. Checked 19 October 2026.
| Category | Weeks | Class hours | On Vento |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | 24–30 | 552–690 | French and Spanish 30 weeks (690). Italian and Portuguese 24 weeks (552). Also Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Romanian, Swedish. FrenchSpanishPortugueseItalian |
| II | about 36 | 828 | German, Haitian Creole, Indonesian, Malay, and Swahili. German |
| III | about 44 | 1,012 | Greek, Hindi, Russian, Turkish, and others. The page says the list is not exhaustive. GreekHindiTurkish |
| IV | 88 | 2,200 | Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean. Hijazi ArabicMandarin ChineseEgyptian ArabicLevantine Arabic |
Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo are taught on Vento from FSI basic courses. They are not named on the State Department page, so they are not given a category or an hour figure here. Russian is Category III and is not in the Vento catalogue yet.
Why you will see Category V and different hours
An older five-band table is still copied around the web: roughly 575–600, 750, 900, 1,100, and 2,200 hours, with German near the middle and Arabic or Mandarin called Category V. The current State Department page has four categories and the hours in the table above. “Category 5 languages” remains a search phrase because of that older chart. Hindi at 400 hours, which older Vento copy used, is not on the current page. Hindi is Category III, 1,012 class hours.
What the hours mean if you study alone
The hours are class hours inside a full-time program, on top of homework. One hour a day of drills is a useful habit and a much longer calendar. Spanish at 690 class hours is on the order of two years of daily hour-long study before you have even matched the classroom total, and you still will not have had a teacher. Mandarin at 2,200 class hours is a different size of project. Read that as scale, not as a contract.
How long, by language
- Mandarin. Category IV, 88 weeks, 2,200 class hours. Start the course.
- German. Category II, about 36 weeks, 828 class hours. Start the course.
- Greek. Category III, about 44 weeks, 1,012 class hours. Start the course.
- Russian. Category III, about 44 weeks, 1,012 class hours. No Vento course yet.
- Arabic, including Hijazi, Egyptian, and Levantine. The page says “Arabic”, Category IV, 2,200 class hours. It does not split dialects. Hijazi.
- French and Spanish. 30 weeks, 690 class hours. French, Spanish.
Questions
What is FSI Category 1?
Category I languages are the closest to English on the State Department list. Danish, Dutch, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Swedish are listed at 24 weeks (552 class hours). French and Spanish are listed at 30 weeks (690 class hours). The goal is ILR 3 in speaking and listening, in full-time class.
Is German Category 1 or 2?
Category II. The current page puts German at about 36 weeks, 828 class hours. Older copied tables put German near 750 hours or call a later band Category II. Use the State Department page, not those copies.
How many hours does FSI say Mandarin takes?
The page lists Chinese – Mandarin as Category IV: 88 weeks, 2,200 class hours, to ILR 3 in speaking and listening. That assumes a typical week of 23 class hours plus 17 hours of self-study, inside a full-time program.
Does FSI rank Arabic dialects separately?
No. The page lists “Arabic” once, as Category IV. It does not publish a separate hour figure for Hijazi, Egyptian, or Levantine.
What is ILR 3?
ILR 3 is professional working proficiency on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale. The State Department page uses an integrated speaking-plus-listening score of 3. It is not a promise of “fluency”, and it is not a self-study schedule.
Are these hours accurate for self-learners?
They describe classroom programs. An hour a day at home is slower and less guided. The numbers are still the right way to see that Mandarin is a larger project than Spanish. They are not a date you will finish.