Linguistics, Languages, and Literatures
Government agencies publish materials in a wide variety of languages and on learning other languages:
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- Foreign Language Lesson PlansFind lesson plans related to ancient languages, including Latin and Greek, as well as modern languages, including Spanish, French, Russian, and more.
Language Timelines
From the U.S. Department of State's Foreign Service Institute's School of Language Studies (SLS).
Category I Languages: 24-30 weeks (600-750 class hours)
"World languages" - Languages more similar to English.
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Danish (24 weeks) |
Dutch (24 weeks) |
French (30 weeks) |
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Italian (24 weeks) |
Norwegian (24 weeks) |
Portuguese (24 weeks) |
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Romanian (24 weeks) |
Spanish (24 weeks) |
Swedish (24 weeks) |
Category II Languages: Approximately 36 weeks (900 class hours)
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German |
Haitian Creole |
Indonesian |
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Malay |
Swahili |
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Category III Languages: Approximately 44 weeks (1100 class hours)
"Hard languages" - Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English. This list is not exhaustive.
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Albanian |
Amharic |
Armenian |
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Azerbaijani |
Bengali |
Bulgarian |
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Burmese |
Czech |
Dari |
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Estonian |
Farsi |
Finnish |
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Georgian |
Greek |
Hausa |
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Hebrew |
Hindi |
Hungarian |
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Icelandic |
Kazakh |
Khmer |
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Kurdish |
Kyrgyz |
Lao |
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Latvian |
Lithuanian |
Macedonian |
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Mongolian |
Nepali |
Polish |
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Russian |
Serbo-Croatian |
Sinhala |
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Slovak |
Slovenian |
Somali |
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Tagalog |
Tajiki |
Tamil |
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Telugu |
Thai |
Tibetan |
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Turkish |
Turkmen |
Ukrainian |
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Urdu |
Uzbek |
Vietnamese |
Category IV Languages: 88 weeks (2200 class hours)
"Super-hard languages" - Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers.
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Arabic |
Chinese – Cantonese |
Chinese – Mandarin |
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Japanese |
Korean |
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Note: All estimates relating to the length of time needed to learn these languages to a Speaking 3/Reading 3 (S3/R3) proficiency level assume that the student is a native speaker of English with no prior knowledge of the language to be learned. It is also assumed that the student has above average aptitude for classroom learning of foreign languages; lower aptitude language learners will typically take longer. Although languages are grouped into general "categories" of difficulty for native English speakers, within each category some languages are more difficult than others.
Linguistics
- American English Dialect Recordings: The Center for Applied Linguistics CollectionThe Center for Applied Linguistics Collection contains 118 hours of recordings documenting North American English dialects. The recordings include speech samples, linguistic interviews, oral histories, conversations, and excerpts from public speeches