How Long Does It Really Take to Learn a New Language?

Do you have realistic language learning expectations?

Welcome, aspiring polyglot! The direct answer is that most people can reach conversational in their target language anywhere from 3-6 months. Some languages, particularly those which require learning a new alphabet, take longer, but you should be able to converse within a year. Fluency is a longer road, but most people don’t need “fluent”, they need functional.

The problem with “fluency” as a goal

Foreign service institute (FSI) numbers track classroom hours for government employees and these numbers skew the data in a way that can be demotivating for the average language learner. In reality, a motivated, self directed learner will always need less time than someone who is paid to sit in a classroom.

Fluency is a vague term. In theory, a native English speaker is fluent in English, but if you do not have a medical background and someone begins reading you a long medical history for a patient, how much would you understand? What about a complex physics explanation? Fluency in English is so unreliable that we even have a term for legal language fluency: legalese.

In order to reach the level of fluency you desire, you need more specific goals. Are you trying to travel with ease? What about study at university in a new country? Do you want a pay raise for your technical skills combined with a foreign language? Each path here represents drastically different timelines.

Without defined goals, seeking fluency is going to lead to the perfectionism trap that so many fall into during their education. Waiting until you are perfect to say anything means never being ready to speak. Most people need conversational ability, ask yourself if that’s you, and if it is, read this post:

Here is what the research says

The FSI has different categories of languages that require more or less time to reach conversational levels. Romance languages typically take anywhere between 500 and 1000 hours for native English speakers. German takes between 900 and 1200 hours. Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and the majority of languages with separate writing systems take north of 2000 hours.

These are generalities that are useful for timeline expectation setting, but do not assume it will take you this long if you are able to truly commit time to learning your new language. These numbers do not account for immersion environments, targeted study, 1 on 1 instruction, or your motivation and dedication.

The people with whom I work typically experience something drastically different. That is to say, normally when people are thinking of 500 hours they think of 12 weeks of 40 hours of work. Fortunately, the clock remains running even if you are not actively focused. Passive language exposure is incredibly potent for language learning success.

Playing the variables

When you are deciding what counts as time spent learning a new language, that is, how do you get to 1000 hours, there are a few variable levers that you can pull. The first of those levers is active versus passive input. I would say every 4 hours of passive input is equivalent to 1 hour of active input. You should include both in your routine for best results.

The next lever you have available to you is input versus output. Here again we have a 4:1 ratio on hours. Every 4 hours of consumption should (ideally must) come with 1 hour of production. Producing is far more effort intensive for a reason and it is ultimately what you are working toward. Every rep you get in practice is confidence you can have when the time to speak comes.

Finally you have a lever that is less in your control, but still a good barometer for progress: your tolerance for mistakes and discomfort. You may not be able to move this lever directly, but you can do things, like make lots and lots of mistakes, to inch it forward until it clicks that no one is expecting perfection except for you. Besides, it’s pretty difficult to forget mistakes you made which is kind of the point when we are talking about language acquisition.

Timelines by goal

Here is a short look at what I would expect from my students looking at a roughly 20 hour per week schedule. Keep in mind, this include 14 hours of passive input every week during commutes, chores, or cardio at the gym.

• Survival basics (ordering food, basic greetings): 2-4 weeks of focused study.

• Conversational (can hold a 15-minute unscripted conversation): 3-6 months.

• Professional working proficiency: 6-12 months.

• Near-native fluency: 2+ years of consistent use.

These are not hard and fast rules. They are actually rather compressed due to methodology and instruction. One of the things I would warn again is doing things that feel like working. That is to say, sometimes trying to optimize your routine and your methodology can cause you to think you are working when in reality you are not actually getting anything done. For more on that, read this:

Conclusion

Most people have a completely skewed view of what it takes to learn a new language. From the time commitment to the variables that move the needle most, nothing really matters without defined goals. Once you have something to aim at, you can start putting everything you have toward reaching that goal; and “fluency” is an incredibly flawed goal.

You do not need to be fluent to be functional, but you do need to be functional to be fluent. This is why I always tell people to target conversational. Once you can hold conversations, the sky is the limit. Getting to that point is difficult, but you can do difficult things and be great. So get out and do some difficult things and become great. I am rooting for you.

The strategies in posts like this one are what I assign to my private students between our sessions. If you’ve been applying them on your own and want to accelerate with personalized instruction and real-time feedback, the private course is the next step.

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