o_19kdfsn0q18e31dfraas1esh19vta.pdf

Languages
INTJs are one of the types most likely to take another language. A study of 491 language studies
students found that 31 (~6%) were INTJs; this is 2.12 times as many as would be expected in an
average population of college students. 259 INTJs are the second most overrepresented type, right
after the INTPs, who liked languages a bit more.
NTs in general seem to have the greatest interest in languages; the top four types most represented
among language students were INTP, INTJ, ENTP, and ENTJ.
INTP 2.34 times as many as would be expected in an average population of college students
INTJ 2.12 "
ENTP 1.79
ENTJ 1.75
INFJ 1.54
INFP 1.42
ISTJ 1.17
ISTP 1.15
ENFP 1.14
ESTP 0.99
ENFJ 0.90
ISFJ 0.60
ESTJ 0.57
ESFP 0.51
ESFJ 0.48
ISFP 0.39
INTJs are also good at languages. One study (read here) 260 examined the Level 4 language students,
the cream of the cream of the crop. As the study's author, Ehrman, observed, "Those who achieve
Level Four are among the true elite of good language learners. Achievement of Level Four in any
skill is both very difficult and rare. It is almost never done in a classroom alone, though in the case
of gifted learners, it may require only a short exposure to a foreign environment together with very
advanced classroom work. For most, however, extended sojourns are the norm. But of course very
few, even of those who spend a long time in a country, reach Level Four." Level 4 students are
almost native speakers.
Ehrman studied a population of 3,145 students who were attending the Foreign Service Institute, a
part of the U.S. Department of State responsible for training personnel in a wide variety of
languages. Out of these students, only 67 (2%) reached Level 4. The most represented type was
INTJ with 16.5% of the sample (11 students total). They were followed by the INTPs (8 students),
ENTPs (7 students) and ENTJs (6 students), with the NFs following after in a big glob. Overall,
intuitives did best, then intuitive thinkers, then introverted intuitive thinkers.
Ehrman speculated that the N penchant for seeing patterns could aid in picking up grammar, while
the NT liking for precision of language could give a student an edge in grasping the actual native
meaning of a given vocabulary word. Taken together, these advantages may explain why Ns, and
NTs in particular, excelled.
259 Moody, 1988
260 Ehrman, 2008