'How long will it take me to become proficient in ...?'

Language Learning Difficulty for English Speakers

People often ask: "How long will it take me to become proficient in ...?" This question is almost impossible to answer because a lot depends on the person's language learning ability, motivation, learning environment, intensity of instruction, and prior experience in learning foreign languages.

The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the Department of State has compiled approximate learning expectations for languages based on the length of time it takes to achieve Professional Speaking (S3) and Reading Proficiency (R-3) in them. This is roughly equivalent to ACTFL Superior .

Keep in mind that students at FSI are almost 40 years old, are native speakers of English. and have a good aptitude for formal language study, plus knowledge of several other foreign languages. They study in small classes of no more than 6. Their schedule calls for 25 hours of class per week with 3-4 hours per day of directed self-study.

Categories Number of full-time weeks to achieve Professional Speaking and Reading ability

Category I
Languages closely related to English
23-24 weeks
(575-600 class hours)

Afrikaans
Danish
Dutch
French
Italian
Norwegian
Portuguese
Romanian
Spanish
Swedish


Category II
Languages with significant linguistic
and/or cultural differences from English
44 weeks
(1100 class hours)

Albanian
Amharic
Armenian
Azerbaijani
Bengali
Bosnian
Bulgarian
Burmese
Croatian
Czech
*Estonian
*Finnish
*Georgian
Greek
Hebrew
Hindi
*Hungarian
Icelandic
Khmer
Lao
Latvian
Lithuanian
Macedonian
*Mongolian
Nepali
Pashto
Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajik)
Polish
Russian
Serbian
Sinhala
Slovak
Slovenian
Tagalog
*Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Urdu
Uzbek
*Vietnamese
Xhosa
Zulu


Category III
Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers 88 weeks
(second year 0f study in-country)
(2200 class hours)

Arabic
Cantonese
Mandarin Chinese
*Japanese
Korean


Other languages
German
30 weeks
(750 class hours)
Indonesian, Malaysian, Swahili
36 weeks
(900 class hours)

* Languages preceded by asterisks are typically somewhat more difficult for native English speakers to learn to speak and read than other languages in the same category.

You can now compare these figures to the average number of class hours per year in a college language course. A typical college year is 9 months or 36 weeks. A typical language course is 3-5 hours a week, or 108-180 hours per year plus preparation outside of class. It's no wonder that students who start a foreign language from scratch in college, rarely achieve high levels of proficiency. Unless they have done significant language work in high school, they will need to supplement their program with intensive summer schools and study abroad in order to achieve a high level of speaking proficiency.

-http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/learningExpectations.html

How many Americans can speak a second language fluently?

Only 9% of Americans can speak their native language plus another language fluently, as opposed to 53% of Europeans.

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