# The hardest languages to learn according to the FSI

The US Foreign Service Institute groups languages by how many hours of study an English-speaking diplomat needs. Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean are Category IV, and Polish is Category III. Which one do you think is the hardest?

- 0 votes · 19 items
- Jul 10, 2026 · geek.wandering
- https://even.best/en/l/2836/the-hardest-languages-to-learn-according-to-the-fsi

## Top 19

1. **Arabic** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category IV: about 88 weeks of study.
2. **Mandarin Chinese** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category IV: tones and thousands of characters.
3. **Cantonese** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category IV: even more tones than Mandarin.
4. **Japanese** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category IV: three writing systems.
5. **Korean** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category IV: a simple script but a difficult grammar.
6. **Russian** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III: about 44 weeks.
7. **Polish** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III: seven cases and lots of consonants.
8. **Czech** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III.
9. **Greek** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III.
10. **Turkish** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III: an agglutinative language.
11. **Vietnamese** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III: six tones.
12. **Thai** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III: tones and its own script.
13. **Hindi** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III.
14. **Hebrew** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III.
15. **Persian** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III.
16. **Tagalog** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III.
17. **Finnish** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III: fifteen cases.
18. **Hungarian** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III.
19. **Estonian** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Category III.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.