Some languages take longer for Anglophones to take than others, according to a report from the US Foreign Service Institute (ISF), which teaches languages to diplomats, shows Indri100.com.
By estimating how much time it takes to learn each language at a level of "professional competence", the report ranks a number of world languages into four categories, from the easiest to the most difficult to learn.
However, the list assumes that students are on a FSI course, a rigorous teaching to students already having a "very good or better aptitude to learn in the classroom of foreign languages".
This always gives a fascinating insight into the time it takes to master another language.
Category 1: 24 to 30 weeks to learn
Danish
Dutch
French
Italian
Norwegian
Portuguese
Romanian
Spanish
Swedish
Category 2: 36 weeks to learn
German
Haitian creole
Indonesian
Malay
Swahili
Category 3: 44 weeks to learn
Albanian
Amharic
Armenian
Azerbaijani
Bengali
Bulgarian
Burmese
Czech
Dari
Estonian
Farsi
Finnish
Georgian
Greek
Gujarati
Hausa
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Icelandic
Kazakh
Khmer
Kurdish
Kyrgyz
Lao
Latvian
Lithuanian
Macedonian
Mongolian
Nepali
Pashto
Polish
Russian
Serbo-Croatian
Sinhala
Slovenian
Slovak
Somali
Tagalog
Tajiki
Tamil
Telugu
Thai
Tibetan
Turkish
Turkmen
Ukrainian
Urdu
Uzbek
Vietnamese
Category 4: 88 weeks to learn
Arabic
Chinese
Japanese
Korean
