There are 3 types of courses to pursue for a career in foreign languages, ie., Certificate course, Diploma course and Degree courses. Some institutes offer both basic and advanced level courses such as postgraduate and PhD, some of them extending upto 5-6 years.

The eligibility for certificate and degree courses is 10+2. In most of the places eligibility for the diploma course is the certificate course in that language. JNU is a major institution conducting language courses. For Japanese, there is a language proficiency test conducted by the Mombusho Scholars Association and Alliance Française is the centre for conducting various French tests like the TEF ( required by the Canadian High Commission), the TCF, DELF /DALF tests and diplomas delivered by the French Ministry of Education.