Language learning guides
The short answer: the single biggest factor in how long a language takes you is which language you picked. Spanish and French run about 600–750 study hours to professional working proficiency for an English speaker; Japanese and Korean run about 2,200. Everything else — method, app, teacher, motivation — moves you along that line faster or slower, but it does not change which line you are on. These guides are built around that reality: work out the hours, pick a method that suits the goal, and stop guessing.
How many hours each language takes
The US Foreign Service Institute has been teaching diplomats for decades and publishes the most widely used difficulty ranking there is. It groups languages into four categories by the classroom hours an English speaker needs to reach professional working proficiency — roughly a strong CEFR B2, the level where you can genuinely hold your own in conversation.
| FSI category | Hours to proficiency | Languages | Realistic calendar time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category I | ~600–750 h | Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish | 6–12 months at an hour a day |
| Category II | ~900 h | German, Indonesian, Malay, Swahili, Haitian Creole | About 1.5 years at an hour a day |
| Category III | ~1,100 h | Russian, Polish, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Turkish, Thai, Vietnamese, Finnish | About 2 years at an hour a day |
| Category IV | ~2,200 h | Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean | 3–4 years at an hour a day |
Two caveats are worth knowing before you take those numbers to heart. First, they are intensive classroom hours with a teacher and homework, not passive app time — an hour of tapping through a vocabulary app is not an hour of FSI instruction. Second, conversational ability comes much earlier than the totals suggest: most learners reach a functional B1 at roughly half to two-thirds of the figure in the table, which is why French feels usable long before you hit 600 hours.
Work out your own timeline
Averages are a starting point; your number depends on how many minutes a day you can actually protect. These calculators turn your daily minutes and your target level into a realistic date, and the level tests tell you where you are starting from if it is not zero.
How long to learn Spanish?
Calculate your timeline →
How long to learn French?
Calculate your timeline →
Spanish level test
Find your level →
French level test
Find your level →Choosing a method that fits your goal
Most people choose an app before they have decided what they actually want out of the language, then blame themselves when it does not work. The honest version is that each family of tools is good at a different thing, and the mismatch is usually the problem — not your discipline.
- You want to speak, soon. Audio-first courses drill production out loud from the first lesson. They are the fastest route to holding a conversation and the slowest route to reading. Start with our Pimsleur review.
- You want grammar you can actually use. Structured lesson courses explain why a sentence works, in your own language, which saves months of confusion in a case-heavy or gendered language. See the Babbel review.
- You want immersion with no translation. Picture-and-audio immersion builds instincts rather than rules, and suits people who dislike grammar tables. See the Rosetta Stone review.
- You want a habit that survives a busy week. Free gamified apps are unbeaten at getting you to show up daily; just do not expect them to make you conversational on their own. Our Babbel vs Duolingo comparison covers the trade-off.
If you would rather see them ranked head to head, the best language learning apps round-up scores all six on speaking, grammar, vocabulary and price, and the comparisons hub pits them against each other one pair at a time.
What actually moves the needle
Across every method we have tested, the same handful of habits separate people who reach a conversational level from people who quit at month four:
- Count hours, not months. Thirty minutes every day is about 180 hours a year. Three hours every other weekend is about 78. The calendar lies; the hours do not.
- Speak from week one. Recognition and production are different skills. If your practice never involves saying anything out loud, your speaking will lag your reading by a year or more.
- Pick a level target, not “fluent”. “Fluent” has no finish line, so it never feels achieved. “Order food and handle a taxi” (A2) or “hold a 20-minute conversation” (B1) do.
- Accept the plateau. The jump from B1 to B2 takes longer than everything before it combined. That is normal, and it is where most people mistake slow progress for no progress.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to learn a language?
It depends far more on which language than on how gifted you are. The US Foreign Service Institute puts Spanish and French at roughly 600–750 hours of study for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency, German at around 900, Russian at around 1,100, and Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and Arabic at roughly 2,200. Conversational ability (CEFR B1) usually arrives at a little over half those totals.
What is the fastest way to learn a language?
Daily contact beats long weekend sessions, and speaking from day one beats passive review. In practice that means a short, non-negotiable daily block — 20 to 40 minutes — that always includes producing the language out loud, not just recognising it. Audio-first courses like Pimsleur are built around exactly this; vocabulary apps are not.
Which language should I learn first?
If you have no specific reason to pick one, a Category I language such as Spanish, French or Italian gets you to a usable level in roughly a third of the time a Category IV language would take. If you do have a reason — family, work, a country you are moving to — that reason will keep you going long after the novelty wears off, and motivation matters more than difficulty.
Do language learning apps actually work?
They work for what they are built to do. Vocabulary and streak apps are good at building a daily habit and a passive word bank; they are weak at producing spontaneous speech. Audio courses are good at speaking and pronunciation but light on reading and grammar. Most people who reach a conversational level combine one of each, plus real conversation practice.