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Purpose: The present study investigated the differences in beliefs about people involved in foreign language (FL) learning depending on the participants’ FL proficiency level. Method: The study used the semantic differential to explore beliefs about people involved in FL learning. The sample for the study consisted of 90 low-proficiency and 90 high-proficiency volunteer participants. Using principal component analysis, two-factor and four-factor solutions were obtained for participants with high and low FL proficiency levels, respectively: the factors Diligence and Remoteness were extracted for both subsamples, and the factors Mediocrity and Eccentricity and openness to experience were obtained additionally for the subsample of low-proficiency participants. Significant shifts in the beliefs about people involved in FL learning between two subsamples were in the factors Unsociability and, to a much lesser extent, Vitality. Participants with high FL proficiency perceived both bilingual and monolingual “roles” as more friendly, mobile, sociable, and active than participants with low FL proficiency did. The findings indicated generally negative attitudes displayed by participants in both subsamples toward “Migrant worker with poor Russian skills”. The scatter plot showed that participants with high FL proficiency tended to display in-group favouritism towards bilingual “roles” and out-group bias towards monolingual ones, especially the “role” “Convinced monolingual”.