This is only my opinion, but I would imagine language learning has just about as high a drop out rate as anything you can embark upon learning. I don’t believe that is because an hour a day gets the job done, if so, there would surely be many more fluent speakers than there are. People realise that it takes a LOT more than they were expecting.
Maybe if you did those 600 in an intense period of studying many hours/day it would get you closer, but as we know, hardly anyone has the luxury of time to do that.
Fwiw, I’d be sceptical of people who tell you they only did this or that to learn a language, the likelihood is they did a LOT more than they’re letting on.
Yes, how you use those hours is important. Immersion is always good too.
But here’s the video I’m talking about:
Steve references the FSI stats and calculates using studying one and a half hours per day. He also mentions studying Russian for three years, which roughly correlates to the FSI chart. Maybe it’s not 100% fluency, but certainly a very “advanced” level. He also mentions studying 6 hours a day to learn Chinese and learning it in a little less than a year.
“If you spend an hour and a half a day, that’s 500 hours, roughly, a year…so on that basis a language that’s similar to your own, like if you’re learning Spanish as a English speaker, within a year you should be at a comfortable level…if you spend three hours a day then you can reduce that by half.”
@Hellion Or they did a lot more than they let on but didn’t actually realise that’s what they were doing.
My friend says ‘oh i just went to school in Spain.’ If you actually quantify it, she had many thousands of hours of speaking, listening and writing practice in real situations where survival was a necessity.
I think it’s different if you’re on your 3rd or 4th language. You already know how to do it so it’s going to comparatively take less time.
Someone of normal learning disposition, in a normal life situation learning Russian as a first foreign language will not do half as well as Steve did in the same amount of time i’m sure.
But i’m not trying to discourage people - i think French is really easy. A lot easier than people make out. I think all languages only take one thing - time spent with the language in the right way. It’s the time element that most underestimate in my opinion. The brain needs time to assimilate which is another underestimated piece of the pie.
That’s why things suddenly just make sense. They have to stew in your mind. If you could take in all the information of a language in a week you still wouldn’t be fluent because your brain needs the time.
Because Luca or Richard can learn German in a year to fluency doesn’t mean average Joe can.
Yeah, that processing time is something a lot of language learners mention. I’ve taken breaks up three months or more studying Chinese/French. When I come back, the first week is always rough, but after that I’m even better than before I took the break.
It might also be possible to do this without taking breaks though. With Chinese immersion classes I was always playing catch up. We moved onto the next lesson before fully understanding the last one. But eventually the new material reinforced the old material, so review wasn’t necessary. It’s a lot more mentally taxing that way, but possible to do.
The measurement isn’t in years, but in hours. A lot of the advantage from studying a third or fourth language comes from knowing how to study and what resources are available. Studying French has given me insights into how to study Chinese better and vice versa. Especially with the right materials from the start or a good teacher to provide them, the matter of hours probably doesn’t exceed more than 1,000 for a similar language like French or Spanish.
Twelve hours per day x thirty days x six months equals about 2000 hours. If it’s 16 hours per day that’s around 3000 hours. So that would be the maximum required then, but I suspect a lot less is really necessary.
Depends how fluent you want to be and what standards you wish to settle for. Most internet ‘polyglots’ like to settle for less because it’s easier to achieve.
Thanks so much for the resources you listed here! I was actually just listening to Caillou and Le Petit Nicolas! Hehe! Where is the LingQ podcast? I can’t find it
