How Long Does It Take to Learn a Language?

Those are the most-cited numbers, and they come from people who run the courses: FSI has trained U.S. diplomats since 1947 and publishes how long its students usually take. The calculator below turns them into hours for your level and a date for your pace. Further down: where each number comes from, a guide for each language and each level, and what pushes your own total up or down.

On this page

Hours calculator

Pick a language, a goal and how much you study a day. If you've already put hours in, add them and they come off the total.

Hours by level and language category

Cumulative hours from scratch for a native English speaker. The FSI column is the State Department's own figure; the CEFR columns are this blog's rule of thumb, explained in the next section.

The full FSI language list has every language and its category, and its FSI hours calculator works out the professional-level figure and a finish date for any of them.

Where the numbers come from

The FSI column. The State Department gives weeks and class hours for its students to reach an integrated score of 3 in speaking and listening on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale, "professional working proficiency". Its students are adults with an aptitude for languages, in small full-time classes: about 23 hours of class and 17 hours of self-study a week, and the self-study isn't in the figure. ILR 3 has no official CEFR equivalent; it is usually read as upper B2 to C1 (more in FSI hours vs CEFR levels).

The CEFR columns. FSI doesn't publish hours for CEFR levels, so we take a fixed share of its figure: about 1/8 for A1, 1/4 for A2, 1/2 for B1, 0.8 for B2 and 1.2 for C1. That's a planning convention, not research. The check is French and Spanish, where it gives 86, 173, 345, 552 and 828 hours. France's indicative hours for the DELF and DALF diplomas, as listed by Campus France, are 60–100 for A1, 150–200 for A2, 350–400 for B1, 550–650 for B2 and 800–950 for C1, and Cambridge English's guided learning hours for English are 180–200 for A2, 350–400 for B1, 500–600 for B2 and 700–800 for C1. Our numbers sit inside or just next to those ranges. For other languages we scale by FSI's figure, which is the part to hold most loosely.

All of these are guided-learning or classroom hours. An hour of an app or a show in the background doesn't convert one to one, which is why your own logged hours, compared with the estimate after a few hundred of them, are the best number you'll get.

How long for your language

• Category I: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and the rest of the easiest languages for English speakers
• Category II: German and the other Category II languages
• Category III: Russian, Polish, Hindi, Greek, Turkish and the other “hard languages”
• Category IV: Japanese, Arabic, Korean, Mandarin and the hardest languages for English speakers
• Learning English: how long it takes a Spanish speaker
• All six UN languages: the combined total

How long for your level

• A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2: one guide per level, each with this calculator
• What the CEFR levels mean, A2 vs B1 and B2 vs C1
• Exams and programs: JLPT hours by level, the Dreaming Spanish roadmap, the ILR scale

From hours to a calendar

The same total takes very different lengths of time depending on your daily habit. Two examples, at a steady pace with no weeks off:

If the right-hand columns look discouraging, look at the left-hand ones: you don't need professional proficiency for the language to be useful, and B1 arrives at half the hours. How many hours a day to study covers picking a daily amount you can keep up.

What moves your total up or down

• Your native language. FSI's figures assume English. A Spanish speaker learning Italian or Portuguese starts much closer; see Portuguese for Spanish speakers.
• Languages you already speak. A strong related language shortens the road, and each language you learn makes the next one faster. More in why your third language is faster.
• Exposure outside study. Living in the country, or simply listening and reading a lot, adds hours you might not count.
• What the hours are made of. Focused input and speaking practice move you further than half-attended review. Active vs passive learning goes into the difference.
• Consistency. A steady daily amount beats occasional marathons, partly because you forget less in between. See why consistency beats intensity.

None of these change the arithmetic, only the total. That's why the most useful number is your own: log your hours, check your level every few hundred hours, and you'll know whether you're running ahead of the estimate or behind it. LangTrack's level goal does that sum for you, with a projected date at your recent pace; the calculator's button above opens it with your numbers filled in.

FAQ

How many hours does it take to learn a language?

For a native English speaker, the U.S. Foreign Service Institute puts professional working proficiency at 552–690 class hours for languages close to English (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese), 828 for German, 1,012 for languages such as Russian, Hindi or Turkish, and 2,200 for Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. A conversational B1 level is roughly half of that.

How long does it take to learn a language at one hour a day?

At an hour a day, Spanish or French takes about 11 months to a rough B1 (345 hours) and just under two years to FSI's 690 hours. Japanese takes about three years to a rough B1 (1,100 hours) and about six years to FSI's 2,200 hours. FSI's hours are intensive classroom hours, so treat these as benchmarks.

How many hours does each CEFR level take?

No official body publishes hours per CEFR level for every language. This blog uses a share of the FSI figure: about 1/8 for A1, 1/4 for A2, 1/2 for B1, 0.8 for B2 and 1.2 for C1. For French or Spanish that gives about 86, 173, 345, 552 and 828 hours, close to the DELF/DALF and Cambridge English hour guides.

Do hours of apps and TV count?

They count as hours with the language, but they don't convert one to one into FSI's class hours, which are full-time, small-group lessons with trained instructors plus homework. Log them anyway, keep active study and passive exposure apart, and compare your own pace with the estimate after a few hundred hours.

Related reading: FSI Language Difficulty Categories · FSI Hours vs CEFR Levels · Weekly Study Time Targets by CEFR Level · How Much Time Should You Study Each Day?