Photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash
By Federica Lupis, https://www.federicalupis.com/
Author of "Fluent On The First Try" and "Why You're Not Fluent and How To Fix It"
Language trainer, interpreter and translator.
After the excitement of learning a new language has worn off – between 5 and 10 minutes at most – you’ll probably find yourself facing one of the biggest dilemmas in the history of language learning: how long will it take?
‘Three months is all you need’ some might say. To which others may reply: ‘No way! One month of full immersion and you’ll be fluent’.
Before I give you my answer, I just want to make sure that this question is relevant. Are you learning a language for work? Do you have a deadline?
We all want to become fluent and make sure it happens in our lifetime but getting the wrong idea could sabotage our plans of learning a language.
Let’s suppose we buy into a marketing strategy promising to make us speak Spanish like Javier Bardem within a few months. What’s going to happen when we realise we sound more like the 5-year old version of him?
Time is important, but we need to be realistic.
In this post, we’ll explore the factors that can help you find out how long it takes to master a foreign language, at least approximatively.
1. Are you new to foreign languages?
If you are new to foreign languages, opening a grammar book might give you crossed eyes. ‘Subjects? Verbs? Pronouns? What’s going on?’ It may feel like you have to learn a language – grammar – before you can learn a foreign language.
Fortunately, there are easy ways around this. You can get a good teacher – like me, at least I hope – or find a website explaining those alien words in simple terms. Either way, it will take some time.
You can’t expect to approach something new and be a genius right away; unless you are a descendent of Nikola Tesla who could read and memorise entire books (W O W!).
So let’s be clear: if you’re new to foreign languages, you’ll probably take longer than someone who has experience on their side.
2. How much time can you devote to language learning?
All basketball players want to be like Michael Jordan, but not everyone realises how much time and effort it took him to become the best basketball player in NBA history.
Learning a language is like playing a sport. If you want to learn a language quickly, you need to practise regularly. Once a week won’t be enough.
3. What’s your goal?
You are the perfect language learner, you practise several times a week, but you’re not getting the results you want.
If you don’t have a clear goal in mind, you shouldn’t be surprised.
Learning a language without a goal is like trying to cross the Amazon on your own without a map.
What are you trying to achieve?
A simple goal could be: ‘I want to be able to introduce myself by the end of the week’.
You have a goal and a time frame. Now you just have to work towards it.
Setting goals will give you direction. So if you haven’t done it yet, it’s time to write down your goals; it will help you progress faster.
To sum up, the time it takes to learn a language depends on:
1. Your experience.
2. How long and how regularly you can practise a foreign language.
3. Your ability to set goals and work towards them.
I know, I’ve made it to the end of this post and haven’t given you an answer yet.
How long will it take to become fluent?
Combine my advice with the results of this reliable analysis, and you’ll have your answer.
Thanks for reading and good luck with your studies!
If you enjoyed my article, you can discover my tried and tested language learning strategies in my books:
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