How hard is it to learn a language as an adult?? Bgolians who speak more than one language...

[geechiedan]

What are the FSI rankings?​

Every learner is unique, and difficulty is tough to quantify, so trying to establish the relative difficulty levels of languages is a largely subjective exercise. However, the Foreign Service Institute’s experience teaching a wide range of languages to thousands of students during a period of around 70 years provides us with a unique source of empirical data on the subject.

Based on almost three-quarters of a century of classes, FSI has been able to categorize languages according to the average amount of time it takes students to reach “Professional Working Proficiency”.

In the language of the US government, this corresponds with a score of “Speaking-3/Reading-3” (S-3/R-3) on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale, roughly equal to B2/C1 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

This means that these rankings are one way for us to gain a clearer idea of which languages are easy or difficult for speakers of English to master.

The language categories are as follows:

• Category I – Languages that usually require around 24-30 weeks or 600-750 class hours to reach S-3/R-3 proficiency. This group contains languages like French, Spanish, Romanian and Dutch.
• Category II - German - Language that requires around 30 weeks in a category of its own.
• Category III – Languages that usually require around 36 weeks or 900 hours of instruction to reach S-3/R-3. These languages are slightly more difficult, and this group includes Indonesian and Swahili.
• Category IV – Students usually need around 44 weeks or 1100 class hours to reach S-3/R-3. This is the largest group and contains a wide variety of languages, including Russian, Hindi, Tamil, Thai, Vietnamese, Turkish, Finnish and many more. They are described as “hard languages”.
• Category V – It usually takes 88 weeks or 2200 hours to reach S-3/R-3 proficiency in these languages. This small group of “super-hard languages” includes Chinese (Mandarin), Cantonese, Japanese, Korean and Arabic.

FSI language difficulty

FSI language difficulty - want to find a language to learn that's in the easy category? Maybe you want to give yourself a challenge and learn the hardest?! These are the easiest and hardest languages for native English speakers to learn!

www.fsi-language-courses.org

 

[Coldchi]

i currently speak 2 languages other than English fluently......(Spanish and Korean).

Still learning Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Telegu.

 

[DWBass]

I had a working knowledge of Spanish when I lived in NY from working at a hospital in the South Bronx with PR's, Dominicans and other Spanish speaking people for over 20 years. Since I moved to Virginia, I have not used Spanish much at all

 

[God's Gift]

So what resources besides babbel and duo lingo are out there to learn a language? I'm currently looking to learn Spanish.

 

[lightbright]

The older you get..... the harder it becomes


.

 

[geechiedan]

So what resources besides babbel and duo lingo are out there to learn a language? I'm currently looking to learn Spanish.

if you have alexa try to do conversational spanish with that.

 

[Helico-pterFunk]

Took French from K through 1st year of college.


Took Spanish for a bit in high school.


Wouldn't mind circling back and brushing up on both decades later.

 

[doe moe]

So what resources besides babbel and duo lingo are out there to learn a language? I'm currently looking to learn Spanish.

Every year around black friday, Rosetta stone offers a lifetime membership to learn 25 languages for $150.00 to $200.00

I'm studying latin american Spanish. While I have access to other languages, latin spanish is my focus.

We're less than 3 months away from black friday. Check them out!

I also go to the library and take out childrens books in spanish and transcribe them into english. It takes time to look up each word you're not familiar with but it offers the most in terms of retention.

Check out this youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@rocknlearn/videos like a child just learning a language this helps you grasp the basics.
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[Lexx Diamond]

Ones capacity to learn anything is based on their aptitude and devotion to learning.

 

[BlackGoku]

Anyone know why Haitian Creole is so hard to learn?

 

[geechiedan]

Ones capacity to learn anything is based on their aptitude and devotion to learning.

Black Confucius over here....

 

[geechiedan]

Anyone know why Haitian Creole is so hard to learn?

Ki moun ki di kreyòl ayisyen te difisil pou aprann?

 

[tallblacknyc]

Every year around black friday, Rosetta stone offers a lifetime membership to learn 25 languages for $150.00 to $200.00

I'm studying latin american Spanish. While I have access to other languages, latin spanish is my focus.

We're less than 3 months away from black friday. Check them out!

I also go to the library and take out childrens books in spanish and transcribe them into english. It takes time to look up each word you're not familiar with but it offers the most in terms of retention.

Check out this youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@rocknlearn/videos like a child just learning a language this helps you grasp the basics.
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Consider this whole response stolen for my hack thread

 

[ansatsusha_gouki]

Black Confucius over here....

 

[BlackGoku]

Ki moun ki di kreyòl ayisyen te difisil pou aprann?

Its on the third tier...taking 36 weeks..thats an entire pregnancy

 

[DC_Dude]

Every year around black friday, Rosetta stone offers a lifetime membership to learn 25 languages for $150.00 to $200.00

I'm studying latin american Spanish. While I have access to other languages, latin spanish is my focus.

We're less than 3 months away from black friday. Check them out!

I also go to the library and take out childrens books in spanish and transcribe them into english. It takes time to look up each word you're not familiar with but it offers the most in terms of retention.

Check out this youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@rocknlearn/videos like a child just learning a language this helps you grasp the basics.
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Needed this.

Went to a Latin festival this weekend back in my hometown of Columbia, SC and was amazed at the number of Cubans, Latinas, and Hispanics. I knew there were alot of Spanish speaking folks in the south, but didn't know it was that BIG esp. since there was zero prescence growing up.

Thanks

 

[heavyhand]

What are the FSI rankings?​

Every learner is unique, and difficulty is tough to quantify, so trying to establish the relative difficulty levels of languages is a largely subjective exercise. However, the Foreign Service Institute’s experience teaching a wide range of languages to thousands of students during a period of around 70 years provides us with a unique source of empirical data on the subject.

Based on almost three-quarters of a century of classes, FSI has been able to categorize languages according to the average amount of time it takes students to reach “Professional Working Proficiency”.

In the language of the US government, this corresponds with a score of “Speaking-3/Reading-3” (S-3/R-3) on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale, roughly equal to B2/C1 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

This means that these rankings are one way for us to gain a clearer idea of which languages are easy or difficult for speakers of English to master.

The language categories are as follows:

• Category I – Languages that usually require around 24-30 weeks or 600-750 class hours to reach S-3/R-3 proficiency. This group contains languages like French, Spanish, Romanian and Dutch.
• Category II - German - Language that requires around 30 weeks in a category of its own.
• Category III – Languages that usually require around 36 weeks or 900 hours of instruction to reach S-3/R-3. These languages are slightly more difficult, and this group includes Indonesian and Swahili.
• Category IV – Students usually need around 44 weeks or 1100 class hours to reach S-3/R-3. This is the largest group and contains a wide variety of languages, including Russian, Hindi, Tamil, Thai, Vietnamese, Turkish, Finnish and many more. They are described as “hard languages”.
• Category V – It usually takes 88 weeks or 2200 hours to reach S-3/R-3 proficiency in these languages. This small group of “super-hard languages” includes Chinese (Mandarin), Cantonese, Japanese, Korean and Arabic.

FSI language difficulty

FSI language difficulty - want to find a language to learn that's in the easy category? Maybe you want to give yourself a challenge and learn the hardest?! These are the easiest and hardest languages for native English speakers to learn!

www.fsi-language-courses.org

As a native speaker I would say zulu is way easier than xhosa, I usually recommend people to learn zulu then xhosa. I would even drop zulu down to level III


bet she'd help with the learning process

 

[doe moe]

@jawnswoop

 

[jawnswoop]

@jawnswoop

Thanks, I'll add that to the collection.

I've been slacking lately because there's been a lot of personal shit going on within my family.

But I gotta get back on my learning Spanish grind.

 

[playahaitian]

Anyone know why Haitian Creole is so hard to learn?

 

[BlackGoku]

See this is why we gotta go to ChatGPT when we got haitans right here that we can ask...

 

[neptunes007]

Learning a new language as an adult takes effort. You have to change your life to that language if you really want to get nice

 

[playahaitian]

Learning a new language as an adult takes effort. You have to change your life to that language if you really want to get nice

immersion is very under appreciated

Going to that country or being around people who speak the language especially a group of co workers or a girlfriend and her family...

will have you speaking Fast

but most importantly?

You have to make the EFFORT.

 

[woodchuck]

Learning Spanish now, for obvious reasons. That being said, I've heard English is much harder to learn, and now I get it. English is a fucked-up language if you're trying to learn it! I went to the bakery the other day, and I was ordering in Spanish and dude kept responding in English. I looked at him and laughed, and he laughed and said, "I'm trying to learn English like you're trying to learn Spanish!".

 

[the artist]

I'm trying to teach myself Spanish now. I can at least understand some of it now but most of it is spoken too fast for me to truly keep up. I'll get better.
Couldn't be sitting at the in-laws' and not know what they're saying.

 

[geechiedan]

 

[Deezz]

Bookmarked.....

 

[Lexx Diamond]

Black Confucius over here....

 

[Lexx Diamond]

Took French from K through 1st year of college.


Took Spanish for a bit in high school.


Wouldn't mind circling back and brushing up on both decades later.

One of the things I love about Canada is you can see stuff like a Japanese family walking by and they are all speaking French.

 

[Studio718]

AI Translation Earbuds Real Time https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FK4L8KVQ?tag=vp314-20

 

[Journey]

Learning Spanish now, for obvious reasons. That being said, I've heard English is much harder to learn, and now I get it. English is a fucked-up language if you're trying to learn it! I went to the bakery the other day, and I was ordering in Spanish and dude kept responding in English. I looked at him and laughed, and he laughed and said, "I'm trying to learn English like you're trying to learn Spanish!".

I'm kinda surprised that English would be very hard to learn if it's not your native or official 1st language. English is the most universal well-known language in the world. You can't go anywhere in the world and do business without having some proficiency in English.

 

[PliggaNease]

I'm kinda surprised that English would be very hard to learn if it's not your native or official 1st language. English is the most universal well-known language in the world. You can't go anywhere in the world and do business without having some proficiency in English.

I've heard quite a few people say that English can be difficult to learn. This piece offers some explanation.

Why Is English So Hard to Learn? - Oxford Royale

%

www.oxford-royale.com

 

[World B Free]

I'm kinda surprised that English would be very hard to learn if it's not your native or official 1st language. English is the most universal well-known language in the world. You can't go anywhere in the world and do business without having some proficiency in English.

Think about English, though. There's a lot of rules that's not clear and makes no sense so it's difficult to learn. Basically, a lot of the rules is "if you know you know and if you don't you don't."

 

[Mask]

I'm trying to teach myself Spanish now. I can at least understand some of it now but most of it is spoken too fast for me to truly keep up. I'll get better.
Couldn't be sitting at the in-laws' and not know what they're saying.

Ya that speaking fast is the issue for me also

 

[woodchuck]

Ya that speaking fast is the issue for me also

That's what's getting me. To me, it's like trying to learn a song on bass. You work it out, you learn the notes and the fingering, and as soon as you press "play", you realize the song is faster than you thought.