Success as a language learner is overwhelmingly dependent on three factors: attitude, the amount of time spent with the language, and the ability to notice patterns.
Given that we have an ideal learner–someone with a positive attitude, strong daily habits, and a keen eye for patterns–how much time should it take to learn a language?
How Much Time Do We Need to Learn a Language?
This isn’t an easy answer. There are too many factors to address: study methods, native language, previous experience with language learning, etc. However, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) has attempted to answer this question, quantifying how many hours of instruction are required to achieve a general professional proficiency in their target language for native English speakers.
The FSI divides languages into four groups, categorized by difficulty:
Group 1 (600 to 750 class hours)
Examples: Spanish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch
Group 2 (900 class hours)
Examples: German, Malay, Indonesian, Swahili, Haitian Creole
Group 3 (1100 class hours)
Examples: Russian, Thai, Greek, Farsi, Albanian, Finnish
Group 4 (2200 class hours)
Examples: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin & Cantonese), Japanese, Korean
How Do We Define Fluency?
It’s difficult to determine how much time one needs to learn a language, as the definition of fluency varies.
The FSI, for example, considers general professional fluency as the benchmark. At this level, the learner can speak their target language with sufficient structural accuracy and vocabulary to participate in most formal and informal contexts. This roughly corresponds to B2 on the European Framework of Reference.
Personally, I consider basic conversational fluency to be a good milestone. At this level, the learner can handle routine tasks, work requirements, and converse with relative ease despite limitations in grammar and vocabulary. Others, of course, aim for a near-native or bilingual proficiency, in which they can use the language at a high level, nearly indistinguishable from an educated native speaker. This is quite difficult to achieve.
Consider what type of fluency you hope to achieve. In Arabic and Persian, for example, I prioritize my ability to read and listen to increasingly more advanced content. Currently, I’m not as concerned by my spoken fluency. There are many definitions of fluency and a wide range of circumstances in which we use a language. This makes it especially important to decide for ourselves what our goals are with our target language.
Learning Outside the Classroom
While the estimates presented by the FSI are helpful, they do not acknowledge that most learning occurs outside of the classroom. To quote Manfred Spitzer, language learning takes place in our brains, not in the classroom. The bulk of my progress with a language is made outside of the classroom.
I spend a lot of time listening and reading to content in my target language, using a system like LingQ, for example. I’ll listen to a podcast while washing the dishes or exercising. I might open up a grammar book to clarify a concept I’ve been noticing while my reading. Perhaps I’ll chat with a tutor on iTalki or attempt to watch a movie in my target language. I’m spending a lot of time with the language, just not in a classroom setting.
In short, I focus on input-based learning, reading and listening to material that I’m legitimately interested in. The Foreign Service Institute does not take this time into account. Therefore, the FSI estimates, based solely on instructional time, may not be the most accurate for you.
My Experience: How Long Does it Take to Learn a Language?
I’ll answer this briefly. For languages that are more similar to English, I have no doubt that someone who is observant, has a positive attitude, and engages with the language for an hour or so every day should expect to reach basic conversational fluency in 2-3 months. For more difficult languages, languages with a different writing system and little to no words in common with our first language, it may take between 6-9 months.
Are you Ever Done Learning a Language?
It is important to mention that, aside from English, I’m not completely satisfied with my fluency in any of my languages. There’s always room for improvement. Language learning is an ongoing process. There’s always more vocabulary, structural complexity, and cultural references to uncover. Again, this makes it especially important to know what you hope to achieve with your target language, as perfection isn’t necessarily achievable.
Learn Languages Faster on LingQ
Repetitive listening is an excellent way to get used to a new language. I recommend texts with lots of repetition and key vocabulary, like the Mini Stories at LingQ. The stories are told in more than one perspective, packed with high-frequency vocabulary and key sentence structures. On LingQ, you can listen and read your content simultaneously, look up and save new words, and review your lessons on the go.
Immersing yourself in a new language doesn’t require you to travel abroad or sign up for an expensive language program. You can find lots of material to listen to and read at home. LingQ has large libraries in dozens of languages from Netflix, YouTube, Project Gutenberg, etc. You can also import your own favorite videos, podcasts, and much more and turn them into interactive lessons.
I like LingQ because it removes barriers between you and a true sense of flow when reading and listening to the target language. Instant translations, review activities, and progress tracking make tackling new content in my target language more comprehensible and more enjoyable.
Final Thoughts
So how long does it take to learn a language? Well, if you enjoy the process, does it really matter? Most recently, I’ve been studying Persian and Arabic for a couple years. However, I’m still not fluent. I’m simply enjoying the process, reading Arabic LingQ Mini-Stories or reading about Iranian cuisine in Persian.
Depending on your goals and circumstances, learning a language can take anywhere from a few months to few years. Frankly, language learning can be an indefinite undertaking. Understand what you want to accomplish, enjoy the process, and you may find that you’re no longer concerned about how much time you need to stay the course.
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48 comments on “How Long Should it Take to Learn a Language?”
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Wow that made me lol – thank you 🙂
Seriously, 10 hours a day? Back to back? For 72 days? You’ll either be fluent or suicidal. I’m on a much slower pace – for me it’s important to find enjoyment in it to reach a point where I look forward to plowing thru those verb conjugations again. Can’t do it on willpower, shame or guilt.
Wow, 10 hours a day. Good for you! Just imagine if you could do 20 hours a day – that’s only 10 short hours more per day. You’d be “done” in just a few weeks.
well if you move to a country that only speaks that language, 10 hours a day being exposed to the language inst that hard to believe
Totally unreasonable. Also it’s mentally quite exhausting learning languages, I’ve been using pimsleur and it’s supposed to be 30 minutes a day, which will take me an hour since I pause to try to recall before hearing the answer, and it’s quite a lot of work to focus for that amount of time. We’re not machines
Also like you were getting at, this isn’t a marathon, it should be a nice enjoyable process of learning a language, where things start to just click nicely with time, we’re not machines. And eventually you’ll just be learning the language in smaller incremental steps where you don’t even realize it, like overtime you hear someone speak or read a street sign.
My University class is 4hrs/day, w/ 2-4 hrs homework per night.. throw in a couple movies, listening exercises, and the fact that my Chinese friends barely speak English – go out to lunch or dinner with them and that’s easily 10 hours
I did 10 hours a day for a month when I was off uni
My level of English used to be quite bad but last year I passed the CPE in English test successfully. So it can be done!
Now the bad news: it will take a lot of work to get there. I am not in favor of a very intensive method. I don’t have the time for that. I took evening language lessons for 5 years: one lesson of 3 hours per week plus two hours of self-study. I live in Brussels, a large city, so I am lucky to be able to go to a very good language schools that prepared me for the Certificate of Proficiency in English.
But that was only the last year. The previous years, I moved up one level every year: A2, B1, B2, C1 and finally C2. It is an ongoing effort, and you open up for the language when you are not studying it, with movies, English books, holidays, talking to international friends, etc. It all helps and it is what a foreign language is all about: using it as a means of communication.
what’s the basic fluency and how do i notice that i’ve achieved to that level?
this article is clearly
thanks steve…:))
you’re the best
When you understand most of what people are saying, and can say mostly what you want to say, although you make mistakes and have an accent, that is basic fluency, in other words fluency. Cheers.
This is a fascinating article and really makes one stop and consider all the variables present when learning a foreign language, let alone the time it takes to reach the different levels described! Would you mind sharing the research sources from FSI you mentioned in the article? I would love to better understand!
Hi there,
Nice post but I think it depends on the person catch power that how many days or months he/she need to learn the language so we can’t decide the time duration for learning the language. we can just assume that a person can learn from 4 to 6 months.
Does this schedule apply for a woman who has young kids still at home? I’m trying to learn Tagalog. I put in about 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week, and that is feeling like a major stretch!! I’m in the “frustrated because I’m not making better progress” category!
Be happy at what you have achieved. Read whatever you listen to, if possible, it is easier to acquire words, and improve comprehension that way. Once you understand it will be easier to speak.
I became fluent in Tagalog by living in Metro Manila for a few years and being a part of the culture.
Why there is no group for Nordic languages like Danish or Norwegian ?
They are in the easy group.
Nordic languages are in group 1 like most Indo -European languages.
1- All languages in Group 2 are Ind-Germanic
2. Some Slavic languages are even in Group 3
Are other African languages like isiZulu, isiXhosa, Xitsonga, Tshivenda and Sepedi grouped with Swahili?
No way! Swahili is a very easy language, and those are difficult languages. I would place those in group 3.
I think cognitive abilities are very important. A person with an excellent memory will learn vocabulary much faster. The older you get, the harder it is to learn new words due to memory problems (senior moments). I am 50 yo and it problably takes me 5 times longer to learn a new word compared to my daughter who is 8 year-old. Someone with pre-dementia or early dementia will certainly have difficulties even with the space repetition technique. If you have an average memory it should be as described above. If you have an excellent memory, then you can cut the time by half. I think motivation is the number one requirement, this can make even bad memory learn a new language provided of sufficient space repetition which works on an individual level.
I’ve only tried to learn one second language, Spanish. I have put thousands of hours into it, listening to tapes, stays of up to three months in language schools in Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica. Plus for the past ten years I read for pleasure only in Spanish, e.g. the entire Harry Potter series, every book written by the prolific detective story writer John D. McDonald. I’ve read approximately 5-10 books per month in Spanish for ten years. Yet after all this I can’t say I’m truly fluent. Unlike most American students of Spanish I can usually get the subjunctive right, although I’m still never sure when in the past with the adverb phrase “despues de que” I need subjunctive, when the indicative, and when I can get my choice. The bottom line is that becoming truly fluent, i.e. like an educated native speaker is almost impossible. I read an interesting study that concluded that most people, even after years living in a Spanish-speaking country, are stuck somewhere between levels 2 and 3 on the Foreign Service Institute scale. People at this level can have conversations on most topics, but they are mutilating the language with a plethora of grammatical mistakes, strange sentence structures, and unusual word choices. Think of the gadzillions of nuances in English that most immigrants never pick up. E.g. “Gotcha!” can mean that you caught someone doing something they shouldn’t, but it can also mean “I understand you.” Partly people get stuck because of what’s called fossilization, which is when a person get “fossilized” on a particular error, e.g. misusing a verb tense, and never improves, despite living in country in a sea of native speakers. To correct fossilized errors is extremely difficult and takes focused training. Use a sports metaphor, like a quarterback who keeps leaving the pocket too soon. The only fix is if the coach drills and drills and drills him. The other reason people don’t advance is simple mathematics. There isn’t enough time. Estimates are that a reasonably educated native speaker of English has a vocabulary of 20,000 to 40,000 words, and I’ve seen higher estimates. So how long would it take you to match a native speaker’s 20,000 words if you could learn a word in 5 minutes and remember it perfectly forever? 1,666 hours, or 208 eight-hour days. Whew! And of course no one can memorize words that fast and hold on to them. Even if you memorize the simple “flash card” meanings, some words will have dozens of meanings depending on context and “helping” words. Think about “gotcha.” The bottom line is that you’re unlikely to ever achieve true fluency. My own unscientific impression is that the 480 hours to reach “basic fluency” is about what you need to ask where the bus is and then not understand the answer! Think about it. If you can recognize and grammatically understand 500 words, and 2,000 words are commonly used in everyday speech, you’re only going to understand 1/4 of what you hear, probably not enough to understand. It’s been my experience that, even though I have a large vocabulary after so much reading, that missing only one or two words in a sentence is enough to get me completely lost. “It sounded to me like Juan said his sister threw a baboon off the patio, but that doesn’t make sense.” My advice is to have realistic expectations. If your goal is to communicate basic needs while traveling, that should be doable with a few hundred hours of study and quick access to an internet dictionary on your phone. But if you want to be mistaken for an educated native, that’s a lifetime slog. Think about it, how long does it take for an English speaker to become a college-educated speaker in his/her own language?
I have been studying Portugues for 4 years, two months and 1 day and been to Brasil 13 times and have been excited to finally learn a second language. I even have a Brasilian girlfriend but she has to order my food for me at restaurants because I still can’t understand spoken Portugues and very little written. It’s like I’m deciphering a secret code and I have to translate everything. My classes have all been in English because I can’t understand enough Portugues. It’s the most frustrating thing I’ve ever done. My girlfriend only speaks English with me because I can’t understand her which doesn’t help. I have been studying 1-3 hours per day and I speak and write with a Brasilian every day but I can’t feel any improvement. I can only say very basic things like “Hello, good bye, please, thank you, good morning, how is it going? and things like this. I have always been able to learn things very quickly. Any ideas? Patfromamboy@aol.com
Excellent comment all around, Rob. Ain’t nuthin’ easy ’bout learnin’ a foreign language, but there can be some great strides made with patience and good ole’ sticktuitiveness, as you have found out. Your “unscientific” comment about the 480 hours and asking where the bus is was really funny.
@Rob, well said and I agree with most points however if one can read a “Harry Potter” book like yourself in a foreign language without a need for a dictionary you are FLUENT then.
In my case due to work I decided to rekindle my interest in German (which would be my 4th language). I’ve been studying German on and off for many years (did 4 years of HS), one semester of college, and then did not touch the language for over 20 years (forgot around 95% of what I learned) and last year did a couple month A1 class on top of self-study and even after all this time I am just at A2 level and know only enough to get by in order to do daily tasks or have child-like conversations. Reading and writing is fine but understanding native speakers on the street when they do not use the most common expressions or for example nouns/verbs for specific actions is a major challenge.
I myself still marvel at people, especially kids who become fluent in just 6 months but as for myself I feel like unless I am in an immersed environment (living in the country) learning the language at full fluency is nearly impossible.
I agree. It seems hard to learn a new language when 99% of the times you’re around people, or talking to people, you hear nothing but English. In addition to basically everything you see, other than things like books for language learning, is in English as well.
I think it also depends on HOW you learn the language. I had 2 years of French in junior high and 4 years in high school. This was back in the 1970s, when languages were taught mostly by textbook with verb conjugation drills. I always received great grades and thought I knew French well until I went on vacation with native speakers and couldn’t understand anything they said! Forty years later I can read or hear some French phrases and automatically know what they mean, but I can’t really speak more than the basics. Things have really changed! Language learning seems to be more natural now. I just hope the new methods are effective. Are there any studies to show the effectivess of different language programs?
I am 36yrs old the first 12 years of my life I learnt and picked up basics in German, Spanish, French and Greek , I wasn`t much of a class person glowing up I left school at the age of 16, when`t to a college that took me for granted I was bullied in school, I have always liked learning languages and cultures and how they worked but no now had faith in me except my mum, so I gave it up, now I am 36 years old and wish to be fluent in all these languages above or 50 languages or more and enjoy them, how can I do that in my lifetime, pay attention to my life needs my needs, and speak all these languages with sos languages, and eko languages on YouTube that has basically ever language under the sun, and lasts for 8 hours or less, how is it possible?
So about how long would it take me (I’m almost 14) to become fluent in Chinese, Japanese and Korean? I already know a bit of each, but not much, and the summer holidays are coming up, so I have a lot of time up my sleeve. How many hours a day would you recommend?
Do as much as you can handle really, and do it seriously. It’s no point thinking about how long achieving fluency or proficiency would take. The time would pass anyways. Let your progress creep up on you.
We have benefited the subject thanks
Nice, your concept of 5 levels of proficiency is interesting. I agree with you thanks for the sharing.
10 hours a day??? Who has time for that?? I still have to work, be a mother, a wife, and a dog mom! Can someone give me a realistic time expectancy?
Thanks for sharing this Great article
I appreciate the valuable time you have used to share this.
Useful insights for learning a language.
Like the simple words and good advice.
thank you so much for this
Thanks for sharing this post,
is very helpful article.
Thanks for sharing this Great article
Dude! Awesome stuff. Please keep writing more things like this.
Thanks for such a beautiful post, very informative and useful article
To be truly fluent you will be learning for the rest of your life. Learning a language is a never ending process. I think it takes at least 5 dedicated years to become decent and 10 years to become really good, nevertheless you will still hear references, words, slang etc that you won’t understsnd being that you did not grow up speaking the language of being exposed to cultural references.
Thanks for the great reminders, Kim. I’m not finding that poll page
It is very helpful. beautiful article
I have tried so much
Beautiful article. thank you