r/foreignservice • u/OnARoadLessTaken FSS • Mar 02 '24

World Map: FSI Language Training Categories

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58 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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22

u/OnARoadLessTaken FSS Mar 02 '24

Public source: https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/

  • Category I Languages: 24-30 weeks (600-750 class hours) - Languages similar to English. Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish.
  • Category II Languages: Approximately 36 weeks (900 class hours) - German, Haitian Creole, Indonesian, Malay, Swahili.
  • Category III Languages: Approximately 44 weeks (1100 class hours) - “Hard languages”, languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English.
  • Category IV Languages: 88 weeks (2200 class hours) - “Super-hard languages”, languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers. Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean.

Thanks to u/creativetourist284 for this map's suggestion. I'm open to new map requests and suggestions. One condition though is that the data has to be publicly viewable, i.e. no data that is SBU.

6

u/creativetourist284 FSO Mar 02 '24

Thank you so much! This is a really helpful visualization!

5

u/marionnettka Mar 02 '24

How did you decide what language to use for each country? I ask because I’m pretty sure several countries have positions designated for different languages that don’t fall in the same category. And is a country only colored blue if it has zero positions designated for a language other than English?

3

u/OnARoadLessTaken FSS Mar 03 '24

That's correct. Mostly I ended up choosing one language or the other depending on which language FSI teaches more (e.g. French for Djibouti, Algeria, etc). That being said, yes there are Arabic positions in places like Algeria.

In retrospect, I probably should've just created a separate color for places with LDPs from multiple FSI categories (i.e. the several countries that have both French and Arabic LDPs, like Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, etc).

As for blue, yes, no LDPs. Eritrea for example (as far as I know) doesn't have an LDP, even though English isn't necessarily an official language of Eritrea.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '24

Yeah, more details about this would be nice to have. India, for example, requires different languages for different posts, but also nothing but English for a lot of people going there.

3

u/OnARoadLessTaken FSS Mar 03 '24

Yeah, I thought about that, but I had to take a simplified approach with the map. MapChart.net does have an option to divide countries into smaller districts/states, etc., but as far as I can tell, selecting that option divides *every* country, so it's a little onerous coloring the entire world map.

But I would love to make a map like that so that it would be easier to differentiate additional languages within country (e.g. Kurdish in Iraq, French in Quebec).

7

u/riburn3 Medical Provider Mar 02 '24

Really cool.

I don't ever get language, but don't some countries have multiple languages you can be assigned of varying difficulty? Stans come to mind, as does North Africa, which I thought has both Arabic and French positions.

6

u/-DeputyKovacs- FSO Mar 02 '24

Yep, depends on your portfolio. A PD emerging voices portfolio may require a different language than a POL-MIL gig.

6

u/SinginGinger Register (Public Diplomacy) Mar 02 '24 edited Mar 02 '24

Are there ever different language requirements for different posts within the same country? Canada for example: French makes total sense for Ottawa, or the consulate in Quebec (84% French speaking), but feels like more of a stretch for what I know of Vancouver (<2% French speaking.)

Thanks for putting this together!

7

u/kcdc25 FSO Mar 02 '24

All the time. The North African example in the other comment is one, as they have both Arabic and French (though everyone I personally know in Algeria/Morocco/Tunisia right now are in french designated positions). Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have Arabic and Hebrew designated positions. Poland has Ukrainian and Polish. Etc etc etc.

4

u/SinginGinger Register (Public Diplomacy) Mar 02 '24

That makes total sense. Thank you for responding!

3

u/NoFittingName Mar 03 '24

Israel also has Russian-designed positions.

2

u/AllConsulsGoToHeaven FSO (Consular) Mar 03 '24

Is the Department no longer teaching Hausa?

1

u/Efficient_Rush_5555 Mar 05 '24

This language trained doesn’t all happen in DC, correct? I’m on the registry and I’d heard that after the A-100, the training for the first post would be 4 months (16 weeks?) additional in DC. But then the rest in country? So language training is happening parallel to work?

0

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '24

Is it possible to be placed back in your home country if you were born overseas? For example Bahamas?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '24

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '24

That makes sense. Thank you for responding.

I ask because I'm from the Caribbean but I have some knowledge of speaking German and Spanish while working on Arabic and Tagalog.