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Language difficulty ranking: 48 languages from easiest to hardest

Every language difficulty chart assumes you speak English. This one doesn't. Pick your native language and we'll re-rank all 48 languages by how hard each is likely to be for you, combining official FSI study hours with language family and writing system. Then start the easy way: by reading real books.

Ranked easiest โ†’ hardest for English speakers. FSI hours are measured for English speakers; the โ€œfor youโ€ estimate adjusts them from shared family and script and is approximate.

Quick answer

The easiest language to learn depends on your native one: for English speakers the U.S. Foreign Service Institute rates French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch among the fastest, at about 750 hours to professional working proficiency. This free tool ranks 48 languages from easiest to hardest and re-ranks them for your own native language, weighing FSI study hours against shared family and writing system.

# Language Est. hours for you FSI difficulty (English) Family Script
1 ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ Dutch 750 h Easiest (Cat. I) Germanic Latin
2 ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ช Swedish 750 h Easiest (Cat. I) Germanic Latin
3 ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ด Norwegian 750 h Easiest (Cat. I) Germanic Latin
4 ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ฐ Danish 750 h Easiest (Cat. I) Germanic Latin
5 ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Afrikaans 750 h Easiest (Cat. I) Germanic Latin
6 ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท French 750 h Easiest (Cat. I) Romance Latin
7 ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ Spanish 750 h Easiest (Cat. I) Romance Latin
8 ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น Italian 750 h Easiest (Cat. I) Romance Latin
9 ๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡น Portuguese 750 h Easiest (Cat. I) Romance Latin
10 ๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡ด Romanian 750 h Easiest (Cat. I) Romance Latin
11 ๐Ÿด๓ ฅ๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ Catalan 750 h Easiest (Cat. I) Romance Latin
12 ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ Galician 750 h Easiest (Cat. I) Romance Latin
13 ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช German 900 h Easy (Cat. II) Germanic Latin
14 ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ฉ Indonesian 900 h Easy (Cat. II) Malayo-Polynesian Latin
15 ๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡พ Malay 900 h Easy (Cat. II) Malayo-Polynesian Latin
16 ๐Ÿ‡ฐ๐Ÿ‡ช Swahili 900 h Easy (Cat. II) Bantu Latin
17 ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ธ Icelandic 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Germanic Latin
18 ๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡ธ Serbian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Slavic Cyrillic, Latin
19 ๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡ฑ Polish 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Slavic Latin
20 ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Czech 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Slavic Latin
21 ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฐ Slovak 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Slavic Latin
22 ๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡ท Croatian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Slavic Latin
23 ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ฆ Bosnian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Slavic Latin
24 ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฎ Slovenian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Slavic Latin
25 ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡ป Latvian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Baltic Latin
26 ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡น Lithuanian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Baltic Latin
27 ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ฑ Albanian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Albanian Latin
28 ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ฎ Finnish 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Finno-Ugric Latin
29 ๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡บ Hungarian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Finno-Ugric Latin
30 ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ช Estonian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Finno-Ugric Latin
31 ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ท Turkish 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Turkic Latin
32 ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Azerbaijani 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Turkic Latin
33 ๐Ÿ‡ป๐Ÿ‡ณ Vietnamese 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Vietic Latin
34 ๐Ÿ‡ฐ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Kazakh 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Turkic Cyrillic, Latin
35 ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Uzbek 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Turkic Latin
36 ๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡ญ Filipino 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Malayo-Polynesian Latin
37 ๐Ÿด Basque 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Isolate Latin
38 ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Zulu 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Bantu Latin
39 ๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡บ Russian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Slavic Cyrillic
40 ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Ukrainian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Slavic Cyrillic
41 ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ฌ Bulgarian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Slavic Cyrillic
42 ๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฐ Macedonian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Slavic Cyrillic
43 ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ท Greek 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Hellenic Greek
44 ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ฒ Armenian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Armenian Armenian
45 ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡พ Belarusian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Slavic Cyrillic
46 ๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ณ Mongolian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Mongolic Cyrillic
47 ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ช Georgian 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Kartvelian Georgian (Mkhedruli)
48 ๐Ÿ‡ฐ๐Ÿ‡ฌ Kyrgyz 1100 h Hard (Cat. III) Turkic Cyrillic

Language difficulty chart by FSI category

Study hours a native English speaker needs for professional working proficiency, by FSI category. Each language links to its own timeline by CEFR level.

FSI category Hours Languages
Easiest (Cat. I) 750 h French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Romanian, Afrikaans, Catalan, Galician
Easy (Cat. II) 900 h German, Indonesian, Malay, Swahili
Hard (Cat. III) 1,100 h Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovenian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Greek, Vietnamese, Icelandic, Kazakh, Uzbek, Filipino, Mongolian, Georgian, Armenian, Albanian, Basque, Zulu, Belarusian, Kyrgyz

FSI Category IV (about 2,200 hours: Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean) is not in Lingo7 yet, so it is not ranked here.

Easiest and hardest languages for English speakers

10 easiest

  1. Dutch, 750 hours
  2. Swedish, 750 hours
  3. Norwegian, 750 hours
  4. Danish, 750 hours
  5. Afrikaans, 750 hours
  6. French, 750 hours
  7. Spanish, 750 hours
  8. Italian, 750 hours
  9. Portuguese, 750 hours
  10. Romanian, 750 hours

10 hardest

  1. Kyrgyz, 1,100 hours
  2. Georgian, 1,100 hours
  3. Mongolian, 1,100 hours
  4. Belarusian, 1,100 hours
  5. Armenian, 1,100 hours
  6. Greek, 1,100 hours
  7. Macedonian, 1,100 hours
  8. Bulgarian, 1,100 hours
  9. Ukrainian, 1,100 hours
  10. Russian, 1,100 hours

Many languages share one FSI figure, so a tie goes by distance from English: a language in the Germanic branch with the Latin script sits closest, a language from another family with another script sits furthest.

How this ranking is computed

For English speakers the rank is the FSI study-hour estimate itself: the classroom hours the U.S. Foreign Service Institute found a native English speaker needs for professional working proficiency, from 750 to 1,100 hours among these 48 languages. Pick another native language and each figure is scaled by a closeness factor built from three inputs: the sub-family branch (Romance, Germanic, Slavic, Turkic and so on), the language family and the writing system. The factor is 0.55 for the same branch and script, 0.7 for the same branch in another script, 0.85 for the same family and script, 0.95 for a shared script alone, 1.05 for the same family in another script and 1.2 for neither. The FSI hours are multiplied by your factor divided by the English speaker's factor for that language, then rounded to the nearest 25 hours, with a floor of 300; a tie goes to the language closer to yours. The FSI only measured English speakers, so the adjusted figure is an estimate, not an official number.

Whatever you pick, the fastest route through those hours is reading: seeing words in real sentences, again and again, until they stick. That's exactly what Lingo7 is built for.

Picked one? See how long it takes to learn it →

Already learning one? Test your level (CEFR A1-C2) →

Frequently asked questions

Which language is easiest to learn for English speakers?

The easiest are the 12 FSI Category I languages, at about 750 hours each to professional working proficiency: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Romanian, Afrikaans, Catalan and Galician. Of these, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Afrikaans belong to the Germanic branch, like English.

What is the hardest language to learn?

The hardest for English speakers are FSI Category IV (Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean), at about 2,200 hours. They are not in Lingo7 yet, so this ranking tops out at Category III: 32 languages at about 1,100 hours. Furthest from English among them, by family and script, are Kyrgyz, Georgian and Mongolian.

What are the FSI language difficulty categories?

The U.S. Foreign Service Institute groups languages by the classroom hours a native English speaker needs to reach professional working proficiency. In this ranking: Category I, about 750 hours (12 languages, such as French and Spanish); Category II, about 900 hours (4 languages, such as German and Indonesian); Category III, about 1,100 hours (32 languages, such as Russian and Serbian). Category IV, about 2,200 hours, covers Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

Does my native language change how hard a language is to learn?

Yes, significantly. A language that shares your language family and writing system is far easier than the raw FSI figure suggests, Italian is much easier for a Spanish speaker than for an English speaker. This tool estimates that adjustment from shared family, sub-family branch and script; the FSI hours themselves are still measured for English speakers.

What is the fastest way to learn a language?

Extensive reading is one of the most efficient paths, because it builds vocabulary and grammatical intuition in context at scale. Lingo7 lets you read real books with parallel translation and native-narrated audio, so you absorb a language faster than with flashcards alone.