Languages

 "The Defense Language Institute categorizes languages into four levels of difficulty.  Category I languages are easier to pick up, while moving on up through Category IV, language comprehension is more difficult, and the length of courses reflect that. 

• Category I languages, 26-week courses, include Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.
• Category II, 35 weeks, includes German and Indonesian
• Category III, 48 weeks, includes Dari, Persian Farsi, Russian, Uzbek, Hindi, Urdu, Hebrew, Thai, Serbian Croatian, Tagalog, Turkish, Sorani and Kurmanji
• Category IV, 64 weeks, includes Arabic, Chinese Mandarin, Korean, Japanese and Pashto

“The expectation is that after 26 weeks in Spanish, you’re going to end up at the same graduation rate as someone who’s here for 64 weeks” studying a Category IV language, said Clare A. Bugary, deputy chief of staff for operations.

She said 91 percent of students at DLI are taking either a Category III or IV language.

DLI also assesses students using the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale, which bases language proficiency on a scale of 0-5.  While Level 5 means someone has a complete fluency of the language, DLI focuses mainly on getting students around Level 2 in overall proficiency.

“Level two to three is typically where our language professionals are,” Bugary said.  Common, everyday conversations – even in English – are usually around Level 2.

- See more at: http://www.ausa.org/publications/ausanews/specialreports/2010/8/Pages/DLI%E2%80%99slanguageguidelines.aspx#sthash.VIEJEyf3.dpuf"

I wonder if they have any stats of how native speakers of language category III compare on progress  when learning any other language comparing to native speakers of language category I.