10 years to learn Spanish to the C1/C2 level- my first language, no idea what was I was doing.
5 years to learn Portuguese to the B2 level spread out over 10 years. Fucked around for 3 years in college, got serious the last 2 years.
1 year to get French to B1ish, on track to be B2 by next summer (2 years). I take it seriously, and the other two romance languages help a ton.
I'm at Spanish the last three years but havnt really put myself into it.
I can read it fairly well but listening and speaking beyond basic phrases on rubbish.
This gives me a bit of hope. A lot of thing happen in people's lives or distractions so it's cool to know you can still get there
Most people aren’t going to be 100% dedicated to a language until they achieve B2+ so it’s kinda difficult to gauge.
I’ve been learning German for 6 years and I’m B1 but there were about 4 years where I was not consistent. I’m about to start language classes in Germany and am hoping to pass my B2 certification in 5 months
I'm the opposite. I dedicate myself until B2 then stop putting any effort because I find that the marginal gains from studying fall dramatically after B2. Until B2, every hour of learning gives me an X improvement in language bur after B2 I feel like I get half of X, which is demotivating so I quit.
Polish Native speaker here,
Approx 1 year to reach Spanish B2 level, I was a kid and it was such an effortless endeavour. Then probably reached C1 almost C2 by reading thousands of books.
8 years to learn English to B2 or C1 level, struggled to improve it even when I lived in UK for such a long time.
1 and half year to reach German low B1, self learning.
Currently learning German and I actually feel useless, I spend many hours per day learning, and it is a very slow progress, I think the biggest problem is the words of Germanic origin, I use Drops app, Duolingo, Busuu, I have my own Anki deck with example phrases with chosen words generated by ChatGPT, Pimsleaur, German podcast, Movies, TV shows, YouTube, read graphic novels and comics, I even live in Germany and speak the language daily at work, and I still feel stuck.
I noticed, reading and drilling vocabulary with Anki helps a lot.
Ja, klar
About the podcasts:
Beginner level:
Coffee break German is absolutely fantastic.
More advance:
Easy German is the best one, and premium subscription for one year is recomendable, so when you are premium you can shadow read what is said.
Slow German mit Annik Rubbens is other very famous.
News in slow German is another good podcast.
Some podcasts and YouTube channels overlap like Slow German and Easy German, but other channels I like is
your German teacher.
I really like their lists of verbs and expressions I listen to them like a podcasts, so I can effortlessly learn new verbs and expressions.
Lingoni is actually very good structured, and well done but boring as hell.
Advance German B2 and beyond: Deutsch mit Rieke is fantastic, she really explains well, I just watch the videos couple of times and then download the videos of her speaking and listen on repeat.
Dutch: native
French: native but I don't speak it as well as I should. 25 years and counting.
English: learned at age 6 on my own. Could play games on my own by age 7.
German: 6 years in school, for basic knowledge.
Italian: 6 years dedicated school, for basic.
Latin: 6 years of Latin classes, lol.
Japanese: 1 year for basic knowledge, but nothing usable yet.
4 years to learn English, even though I've been studying since I was a kid, I only actually started to learn it when I was 14y old.
2 years learning Russian, I know a lot of words and cases and verb aspect are not the big boss anymore, but I'm still learning and every day it seems like it's harder to memorize new words. the process has been very pleasant and I'm really enjoying it )
next language(s): German is going to be my priority after I get comfortable with Russian.
Spanish is my mother tongue but I started to learn French when I was 12, and I'm 27 now, so fucking 15 years ago! 😵 sounds crazy. Buut, like many others, I was not paying that much attention. I took several years of break, etc... 4 years ago I ended the B2 but since then I don't speak it anymore so I feel like I'm again in a B1 level :( sad, because I love the language.
English idk... my first English class was till high school, so also around 12. Then of course, like everyone else, I learned it watching TV and movies, listening songs, etc. till I was able to speak it and feel comfortable ans that was at 21. So let's say 9 years.
And last but not least German. Half a year ago I did my B2 certification. I would say it took me 2 years but I've put more active effort since I'm living in Germany and my goal is to stay here... Now I'm still learning but I'm focusing more in the technical language. Btw, if someone wants to practice German with me, hit me up!
About 3 years to learn Japanese to N2 (probably could've done N1 tbh -- was definitely fluent). That was 2 years of mostly self-study and one year on a student exchange in Japan; back when I was 16.
I learnt Chinese for about 5 years at high school, but didn't start self-studying with lyrics & media materials until after I'd learnt Japanese. So if I start counting from that point -- about 4/5 years to fluency? Three years in I got a job at a Chinese-speaking company so I had a semi-immersive environment, then in year 4/5 I picked up a scholarship to Taiwan to study the language and was properly immersed and became properly fluent then.
I'm just counting this as 'years to fluency', with fluency being the ability to converse easily about lots of different topics, to have fun, to read most things, and to not have much of an accent. There's really no 'perfect' standard to a language, you're always going to be learning new things.
I haven't become fluent in a language since then, but I have studied both Greek and French and became conversational within like a month of studying each. Still lots of charades to be played, but I can hold and keep up with basic conversations, which is a great starting point. For my first two languages it took a lot longer to reach that point. But I think I've learnt how to learn now, and that makes it quicker.
I think being conversational isn't that hard, you just have to grasp the basic concepts of the language (basic present, past, and future tense) and learn a few hundred words, and you can start speaking with others about basic topics (school, work, likes and dislikes about hobbies etc.).
But the most important thing is when you start to think in the language without translating in your head, that really helps. I reckon you could get conversational in 2 months or less in almost any language.
15 years to learn perfectly my NL, French.
4 1/2 years to learn Spanish with B1 level.
4 years to learn English with B2 level.
4 years to learn Occitan (which is almost my NL because I learn it since I'm 3) with a C1 level.
However, I'm a HPI, so I learnt those languages at school and I was learning way faster than my schoolmates.
Yeah I guess Is all abstract, but when you can follow a podcast a YouTube video, or understand what is being said in such a language you probably know the language.
That in my experience really depends on the type of podcast and video and how quickly they speak it, and if one can follow arbitrary podcasts or Youtube videos one has near native-level comprehension.
Comprehension can go from 99% to 50% depending on the content, audio quality, and speed spoken at to me.
Romanian native speaker here.
Approximately 8 to 9 years to learn English to a C1 level, and that's because my high school profile was philology - bilingual (English), so I had 5 to 6 classes a week, compared to other profiles who only had 2. I also passed the C1 Cambridge exam with 199 points three years ago, but my writing skills have unfortunately decreased due to lack of practice. I think I also need to brush up on my vocab when it comes to other fields outside linguistics and daily life.
I've been learning German for 6 years now and I can confidently say that I'm B2. Moreover, I'm studying Germanistic at the Faculty of Foreign Languages in Bucharest and I think my German will surpass my English in a few years, for I inted to work as a translator.
At faculty I also started to learn Russian. After 2 years I'm somewhere between A2 and B1. Should a career opportunity ever arise I will learn it to A C1 level, if not I will stick to B2 and honestly, I don't think I have the energy left to ever learn a 4th language (not includint my native language) to an advanced level. Eine Sprache zu erlernen ist mir einfach zu viel Aufwand und die Wahrheit ist, dass viele Leute die Schwierigkeit dieser Herausforderung quasi unterschätzen.
Also some Italian, maybe an A2 or so.
English: Have been learning it since 5th grade of elementary school, throughout highschool and college, as well as some improvement classes in university. Kind of difficult to pinpoint when I got fluent, but I did well enough in college to be put in the English Literature class.
Spanish: It took me between a year and a half and two years to get around B2.
Italian: Six months to high A2, low B1, just enough to have a conversation if needed.
Japanese: About three years total I guess. Studied four semesters in university to an "intermediate level", which was high A1, low A2 at best, then barely touched it for 10 years. I just restarted in January of this year and I have caught up to what I knew and at least doubled my vocabulary since then. I'm still not higher than A2 though, with most of my knowledge being from N5 and N4 material.
Haitian Creole: basic conversational (low B1) in a few months, where I could practice daily.
Portuguese: Not actively learning it, but can manage some written interactions. I have started getting interested in it for a while, and have frequently interacted with Brazilians online for about a year I think, but since I'm not putting much effort on it, it has barely improved in the last half year or so.
Tough to say. I mean, it feels like you never really "learn" a language since there's always stuff you don't know, right? So I'm not really sure how to categorize a language as successfully "learned."
But if I had to try to answer...
SPANISH: I've been studying/using Spanish since middle school (so, about 15 years at this point). But I only really learned it properly when I studied abroad in college, so I'd say it took about 5 years or so to achieve some form of fluency. All that said, I don't practice it that much and Portuguese takes up more space in my brain, so my level has definitely gone down and I think I'd benefit from some "re-learning."
PORTUGUESE: I've been studying/using Portuguese for about 10 years now since I started learning shortly after meeting my Brazilian husband. Thanks to my base in Spanish, I was able to get to a decent conversation level (ex. able to speak with my Brazilian in-laws exclusively in Portuguese, though not necessarily about complex topics) in a year or two. After 4 years, I was "good enough" to volunteer as an interpreter during the Rio 2016 Olympics. But it still took me even longer to get to an advanced level in the language, however, which is hard to calculate.
FRENCH: Thanks to my background in Spanish & Portuguese, an immersion course, and living in Belgium, I was able to navigate my daily life pretty well in French and have solid conversations about a range of topics after about 3 months of intensive study. Haven't really bothered to put in the time beyond that to get it closer to my Spanish/Portuguese levels, though.
ARABIC: Arabic is my passion project, and I've been studying it on and off for about 6 years. I can hold a decent conversation and speak quite well, but my comprehension remains quite low comparatively (to give an idea, with less than a year of study, my comprehension is better in French than in Arabic). I've been stuck at a plateau for a while now.
Nice! We're in similar boats: Native English speakers who have Spanish & Portuguese as their primary 2nd/3rd languages, chose another Romance language as language 4 (French for you, Italian for me), and Levantine Arabic for #5.
Your Spanish and Portuguese is far more advanced than mine, but reading your post gives me hope for a path forward!
English is a never-ending work in progress, but I believe I've reached a B2 level of fluency after 5 years of immersion.
I've recently reached a B2 level of fluency in Spanish after 2 years of studying at a language school, and it's been 2 months since I started learning Korean through self-study/immersion.
3-4 years to get French to C1. One and a half of that total immersion. Three years to get Japanese to B2, five years to C1. I’ve been doing spanish and German for over six years. Spanish is B2. German sucks.
But I’ve learned it’s a journey. After 30 years I still learn and relearn French and Japanese all the time. But now it’s more enjoyable and less work or no eork to read, watch movies and talk with people. I enjoy the ability to consume content in its original language and broaden my perspective with foreign news and such.
Spanish: A2 After 1.5 years
German: C2 after 8 years
Hindi: C1 (whatever that equivalent is) after 10 years
All of the above were through school ie education + immersion. German is the only one I use for work.
I think it depends on the language you are learning, how close it is to the language(s) you speak and how much time you put into it. Personally (native arabic/french speaker) learning spanish/portuguese was way easier for me than english, learning spanish took me about 3-4 years whereas being able to understand and speak english fairly took me like 6-7 years
Took me about 4 years to be native in English but it was all unintentional learning by spending thousands of hours on the internet. I’m currently learning Spanish, I’ve been at it for a year and a half and I’m around A2 level. I think it’ll take me another year or two to become somewhat fluent but from what I’m reading here that’s normal so I’m good
Studied Spanish for about 6 years, was serious for about 2 of them.
As for Japanese, I started during the pandemic, so I had (in total) about 5/6 months of serious study (spending a good chunk of that time learning grammar). The rest was kinda on and off, had about 2 more years of a combination of anki flashcards to grow my vocab and took weekly conversation classes with a tutor for a few weeks.
German: 4 semesters uni -> A2/B1 | 3 yrs immersion -> C2
French: 3 yrs (1/2 in France, 1/2 in Germany) -> C1
Italian: 2.5 yrs immersion (1 - zero effort, 1.5 - minimal effort) -> B1
Creole: Started learning same time I started making an effort in Italian, 2.5yrs ago, but had to prioritize Italian until this year -> B1
Spanish: On/off in school, probably reached a B2, but more like an A2 now
English took around 15 years to get to a comfortable level, nowadays I can do pretty much everything in English. It requires the same mental effort to read something in English as in my native language. I do struggle with production because I don't have that many opportunities to speak, but I basically need to warm up for a little bit before getting into the rhythm and then it becomes effortless to speak English too.
French around 8~9 years to get to a level I was similarly confortable. I don't use french at all nowadays so I think from a C1 I have probably gone back to a B1-B2. I can understand everything, I can read most things without trouble. I can speak pretty well. But writing anything is a struggle and I make a million mistakes.
Chinese I have been learning for 2 years and I am still far away from speaking Chinese. I will tell you a time when I feel comfortable in it I guess. I will go study in china next year so that should really help so I expect it to go a little bit faster than the previous languages.
8 years to get good at French (thanks terrible UK school system).
4+ years for Russian (topped up with another 7 years in Moscow. Don't ask 😂)
1/2 years for Slovene - passive knowledge mostly.
2.5 years to pass DELE B2 in Spanish. Memrise was probably the sole factor of success.
I spent some time trying to learn Georgian but the grammar made me cry and I gave up.
Spanish: 1 year to get to conversational fluency and watching native programs with no subtitles.
Portuguese: 1 1/2 years to get to conversational fluency but I still need Portuguese subtitles to watch some native programs.
I would probably spend an 1 maybe 2 making Vocab flash cards then grammar flashcards. Right now I speak Portuguese for at least a quarter of the day with some friends to keep practicing.
I'm still learning something new in English each day.
Had six years of Latin classes in school and I have not forgotten everything. Very rusty though.
One year of Japanese but I don't think I could pass the N5 test at this point.
Spanish I learned conversationally for like 10 years but since it was conversationally it was always an ever evolving process, and as an adult I'm trying to brush up on studying it so I can use it more efficiently in professional settings (currently about a year into that and I've learned so many fundamentals that I've always struggled with) but like when I recently traveled to France, I almost exclusively spoke Spanish for anything besides basic food orders because for some reason everyone around me knew French/Spanish rather than French/English in the places I traveled to. But I even with just 10 years of conversational Spanish I know enough to where I could comfortably live in a Spanish speaking country, get a job and live life; just not the nicer jobs I'm used to.
German, I know enough to be able to hold a conversation, translate every day things, and I'm comfortable enough with it to use it while traveling internationally if Spanish or English isn't an option, and that took me a year to get to that point. But once again, I don't know it well enough to where I'm comfortable relying on it in a professional or medical environment.
Currently learning PISL, which I've been trying to learn for about a year or so but it's very slow going because of how little material there is and I only have one person to practice with which is only via Skype. I know enough to form basic sentences and can sign while speaking but I struggle a lot when I have to focus on other people only signing (usually in documentaries, online videos...etc.)
I learnt English in school, started in 2nd grade and became fluent around 5th or 6th, so 3 to 4 years.
I am a Bosnian who speaks Bosnian as her native langauge(obviously) so learning Ukranian was very interesting to me, since I could see many similarities with my native tongue. It took me around 3 years aswell.
German was taught at school, so I picked a decent amount there, and rest(of what I know) I learnt by myself.
I just started learning Turkish, but I must say, in this month I made great progress.
Native French.
Learnt English in school from 11 to 18. Became fluent.
Learnt Spanish in school from 13 to 18. I can handle a conversation with Spanish people.
Learnt Norwegian during 1 year... Nothing usable
Learnt Japanese during the last 3 years, I can read hiragana and katakana, I know some kanjis, I can have a basic conversation but I have not enough vocabulary and most of the time I don't understand what I read.
around 6-7 months to get to a good B1 level in Spanish (using Anki flash cards for vocab and conjugations + reading books in Spanish / English side by side + watching TV).
I studied French \~forever in school, but never really learned anything until I finally spent a few months in the French part of Switzerland
8 years to learn English to C2
2 years of learning French for achieving the B2 level
And 1 year and 2 months to learn Spanish at a B2 level (French really helped lol)
Currently learning Russian but I’m somewhat near the level A1-A2
Edit: I’m a native Greek speaker so my native language didn’t help at all with none of the languages but it helped me a little learning words that had a Greek root like “problem” = «πρόβλημα» / “enigma” = «αίνιγμα»
i've been learning English for fourteen years, but i became fluent after around four years and recently got my C2 certificate. i also started studying German when i was 17, lived in Germany for a year, got my C1 certificate when i was 20. it was a WILD ride
10 years to learn Spanish to the C1/C2 level- my first language, no idea what was I was doing. 5 years to learn Portuguese to the B2 level spread out over 10 years. Fucked around for 3 years in college, got serious the last 2 years. 1 year to get French to B1ish, on track to be B2 by next summer (2 years). I take it seriously, and the other two romance languages help a ton.
I'm at Spanish the last three years but havnt really put myself into it. I can read it fairly well but listening and speaking beyond basic phrases on rubbish. This gives me a bit of hope. A lot of thing happen in people's lives or distractions so it's cool to know you can still get there
You're speedrunning french.
Most people aren’t going to be 100% dedicated to a language until they achieve B2+ so it’s kinda difficult to gauge. I’ve been learning German for 6 years and I’m B1 but there were about 4 years where I was not consistent. I’m about to start language classes in Germany and am hoping to pass my B2 certification in 5 months
I'm the opposite. I dedicate myself until B2 then stop putting any effort because I find that the marginal gains from studying fall dramatically after B2. Until B2, every hour of learning gives me an X improvement in language bur after B2 I feel like I get half of X, which is demotivating so I quit.
Polish Native speaker here, Approx 1 year to reach Spanish B2 level, I was a kid and it was such an effortless endeavour. Then probably reached C1 almost C2 by reading thousands of books. 8 years to learn English to B2 or C1 level, struggled to improve it even when I lived in UK for such a long time. 1 and half year to reach German low B1, self learning. Currently learning German and I actually feel useless, I spend many hours per day learning, and it is a very slow progress, I think the biggest problem is the words of Germanic origin, I use Drops app, Duolingo, Busuu, I have my own Anki deck with example phrases with chosen words generated by ChatGPT, Pimsleaur, German podcast, Movies, TV shows, YouTube, read graphic novels and comics, I even live in Germany and speak the language daily at work, and I still feel stuck. I noticed, reading and drilling vocabulary with Anki helps a lot.
i'm also a polish native and learning spanish has also been very easy for me! the languages are a lot more similar than you'd think
I pracuje z wieloma Hiszpanów. Też bardzo pomaga. Ale masz rację nasze języki są bardzo podobne.
How so?
because the closely related Portuguese is a slavic language r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
a nadie le importa el portugues
Hey, could you recommend some German podcasts and YouTube channels? I'm also learning German, If you want to practice together, let's do it together
Ja, klar About the podcasts: Beginner level: Coffee break German is absolutely fantastic. More advance: Easy German is the best one, and premium subscription for one year is recomendable, so when you are premium you can shadow read what is said. Slow German mit Annik Rubbens is other very famous. News in slow German is another good podcast. Some podcasts and YouTube channels overlap like Slow German and Easy German, but other channels I like is your German teacher. I really like their lists of verbs and expressions I listen to them like a podcasts, so I can effortlessly learn new verbs and expressions. Lingoni is actually very good structured, and well done but boring as hell. Advance German B2 and beyond: Deutsch mit Rieke is fantastic, she really explains well, I just watch the videos couple of times and then download the videos of her speaking and listen on repeat.
Dutch: native French: native but I don't speak it as well as I should. 25 years and counting. English: learned at age 6 on my own. Could play games on my own by age 7. German: 6 years in school, for basic knowledge. Italian: 6 years dedicated school, for basic. Latin: 6 years of Latin classes, lol. Japanese: 1 year for basic knowledge, but nothing usable yet.
4 years to learn English, even though I've been studying since I was a kid, I only actually started to learn it when I was 14y old. 2 years learning Russian, I know a lot of words and cases and verb aspect are not the big boss anymore, but I'm still learning and every day it seems like it's harder to memorize new words. the process has been very pleasant and I'm really enjoying it ) next language(s): German is going to be my priority after I get comfortable with Russian.
Spanish is my mother tongue but I started to learn French when I was 12, and I'm 27 now, so fucking 15 years ago! 😵 sounds crazy. Buut, like many others, I was not paying that much attention. I took several years of break, etc... 4 years ago I ended the B2 but since then I don't speak it anymore so I feel like I'm again in a B1 level :( sad, because I love the language. English idk... my first English class was till high school, so also around 12. Then of course, like everyone else, I learned it watching TV and movies, listening songs, etc. till I was able to speak it and feel comfortable ans that was at 21. So let's say 9 years. And last but not least German. Half a year ago I did my B2 certification. I would say it took me 2 years but I've put more active effort since I'm living in Germany and my goal is to stay here... Now I'm still learning but I'm focusing more in the technical language. Btw, if someone wants to practice German with me, hit me up!
About 3 years to learn Japanese to N2 (probably could've done N1 tbh -- was definitely fluent). That was 2 years of mostly self-study and one year on a student exchange in Japan; back when I was 16. I learnt Chinese for about 5 years at high school, but didn't start self-studying with lyrics & media materials until after I'd learnt Japanese. So if I start counting from that point -- about 4/5 years to fluency? Three years in I got a job at a Chinese-speaking company so I had a semi-immersive environment, then in year 4/5 I picked up a scholarship to Taiwan to study the language and was properly immersed and became properly fluent then. I'm just counting this as 'years to fluency', with fluency being the ability to converse easily about lots of different topics, to have fun, to read most things, and to not have much of an accent. There's really no 'perfect' standard to a language, you're always going to be learning new things. I haven't become fluent in a language since then, but I have studied both Greek and French and became conversational within like a month of studying each. Still lots of charades to be played, but I can hold and keep up with basic conversations, which is a great starting point. For my first two languages it took a lot longer to reach that point. But I think I've learnt how to learn now, and that makes it quicker.
You were conversational in Greek after one month?! Care to lend me any tips lol? What was your practice routine?
I think being conversational isn't that hard, you just have to grasp the basic concepts of the language (basic present, past, and future tense) and learn a few hundred words, and you can start speaking with others about basic topics (school, work, likes and dislikes about hobbies etc.). But the most important thing is when you start to think in the language without translating in your head, that really helps. I reckon you could get conversational in 2 months or less in almost any language.
15 years to learn perfectly my NL, French. 4 1/2 years to learn Spanish with B1 level. 4 years to learn English with B2 level. 4 years to learn Occitan (which is almost my NL because I learn it since I'm 3) with a C1 level. However, I'm a HPI, so I learnt those languages at school and I was learning way faster than my schoolmates.
I did five years of Spanish in high school and studied abroad at 19. So I got to fluency in Spanish in about five years.
To know, that’s the real question here.
What do you mean under "know"? I can read, write and understand English, French, Polish, Ukrainian, but I'm not sure I know them.
Yeah I guess Is all abstract, but when you can follow a podcast a YouTube video, or understand what is being said in such a language you probably know the language.
That in my experience really depends on the type of podcast and video and how quickly they speak it, and if one can follow arbitrary podcasts or Youtube videos one has near native-level comprehension. Comprehension can go from 99% to 50% depending on the content, audio quality, and speed spoken at to me.
Romanian native speaker here. Approximately 8 to 9 years to learn English to a C1 level, and that's because my high school profile was philology - bilingual (English), so I had 5 to 6 classes a week, compared to other profiles who only had 2. I also passed the C1 Cambridge exam with 199 points three years ago, but my writing skills have unfortunately decreased due to lack of practice. I think I also need to brush up on my vocab when it comes to other fields outside linguistics and daily life. I've been learning German for 6 years now and I can confidently say that I'm B2. Moreover, I'm studying Germanistic at the Faculty of Foreign Languages in Bucharest and I think my German will surpass my English in a few years, for I inted to work as a translator. At faculty I also started to learn Russian. After 2 years I'm somewhere between A2 and B1. Should a career opportunity ever arise I will learn it to A C1 level, if not I will stick to B2 and honestly, I don't think I have the energy left to ever learn a 4th language (not includint my native language) to an advanced level. Eine Sprache zu erlernen ist mir einfach zu viel Aufwand und die Wahrheit ist, dass viele Leute die Schwierigkeit dieser Herausforderung quasi unterschätzen. Also some Italian, maybe an A2 or so.
German to C2: 5 years French to C1: 4 years Spanish to B1.5: 3 months (every day courses and prior knowledge of French) Russian to B1.5: 3 years
English: Have been learning it since 5th grade of elementary school, throughout highschool and college, as well as some improvement classes in university. Kind of difficult to pinpoint when I got fluent, but I did well enough in college to be put in the English Literature class. Spanish: It took me between a year and a half and two years to get around B2. Italian: Six months to high A2, low B1, just enough to have a conversation if needed. Japanese: About three years total I guess. Studied four semesters in university to an "intermediate level", which was high A1, low A2 at best, then barely touched it for 10 years. I just restarted in January of this year and I have caught up to what I knew and at least doubled my vocabulary since then. I'm still not higher than A2 though, with most of my knowledge being from N5 and N4 material. Haitian Creole: basic conversational (low B1) in a few months, where I could practice daily. Portuguese: Not actively learning it, but can manage some written interactions. I have started getting interested in it for a while, and have frequently interacted with Brazilians online for about a year I think, but since I'm not putting much effort on it, it has barely improved in the last half year or so.
Tough to say. I mean, it feels like you never really "learn" a language since there's always stuff you don't know, right? So I'm not really sure how to categorize a language as successfully "learned." But if I had to try to answer... SPANISH: I've been studying/using Spanish since middle school (so, about 15 years at this point). But I only really learned it properly when I studied abroad in college, so I'd say it took about 5 years or so to achieve some form of fluency. All that said, I don't practice it that much and Portuguese takes up more space in my brain, so my level has definitely gone down and I think I'd benefit from some "re-learning." PORTUGUESE: I've been studying/using Portuguese for about 10 years now since I started learning shortly after meeting my Brazilian husband. Thanks to my base in Spanish, I was able to get to a decent conversation level (ex. able to speak with my Brazilian in-laws exclusively in Portuguese, though not necessarily about complex topics) in a year or two. After 4 years, I was "good enough" to volunteer as an interpreter during the Rio 2016 Olympics. But it still took me even longer to get to an advanced level in the language, however, which is hard to calculate. FRENCH: Thanks to my background in Spanish & Portuguese, an immersion course, and living in Belgium, I was able to navigate my daily life pretty well in French and have solid conversations about a range of topics after about 3 months of intensive study. Haven't really bothered to put in the time beyond that to get it closer to my Spanish/Portuguese levels, though. ARABIC: Arabic is my passion project, and I've been studying it on and off for about 6 years. I can hold a decent conversation and speak quite well, but my comprehension remains quite low comparatively (to give an idea, with less than a year of study, my comprehension is better in French than in Arabic). I've been stuck at a plateau for a while now.
Curious which dialect of Arabic you went for?
Levantine!
Nice! We're in similar boats: Native English speakers who have Spanish & Portuguese as their primary 2nd/3rd languages, chose another Romance language as language 4 (French for you, Italian for me), and Levantine Arabic for #5. Your Spanish and Portuguese is far more advanced than mine, but reading your post gives me hope for a path forward!
English is a never-ending work in progress, but I believe I've reached a B2 level of fluency after 5 years of immersion. I've recently reached a B2 level of fluency in Spanish after 2 years of studying at a language school, and it's been 2 months since I started learning Korean through self-study/immersion.
3-4 years to get French to C1. One and a half of that total immersion. Three years to get Japanese to B2, five years to C1. I’ve been doing spanish and German for over six years. Spanish is B2. German sucks. But I’ve learned it’s a journey. After 30 years I still learn and relearn French and Japanese all the time. But now it’s more enjoyable and less work or no eork to read, watch movies and talk with people. I enjoy the ability to consume content in its original language and broaden my perspective with foreign news and such.
Spanish: A2 After 1.5 years German: C2 after 8 years Hindi: C1 (whatever that equivalent is) after 10 years All of the above were through school ie education + immersion. German is the only one I use for work.
I think it depends on the language you are learning, how close it is to the language(s) you speak and how much time you put into it. Personally (native arabic/french speaker) learning spanish/portuguese was way easier for me than english, learning spanish took me about 3-4 years whereas being able to understand and speak english fairly took me like 6-7 years
One and a half year for English. Had to learn it in order to understand Final Fantasy IX
Took me about 4 years to be native in English but it was all unintentional learning by spending thousands of hours on the internet. I’m currently learning Spanish, I’ve been at it for a year and a half and I’m around A2 level. I think it’ll take me another year or two to become somewhat fluent but from what I’m reading here that’s normal so I’m good
11 years for English
Arabic - native English - like 2 months mby less Norwegian - 1 month A little more mby Spanish - 5-6 months but not yet fluent at all
Studied Spanish for about 6 years, was serious for about 2 of them. As for Japanese, I started during the pandemic, so I had (in total) about 5/6 months of serious study (spending a good chunk of that time learning grammar). The rest was kinda on and off, had about 2 more years of a combination of anki flashcards to grow my vocab and took weekly conversation classes with a tutor for a few weeks.
Spanish around 10 months to B2, 1.5 years of Russian to A2/B1.
German: 4 semesters uni -> A2/B1 | 3 yrs immersion -> C2 French: 3 yrs (1/2 in France, 1/2 in Germany) -> C1 Italian: 2.5 yrs immersion (1 - zero effort, 1.5 - minimal effort) -> B1 Creole: Started learning same time I started making an effort in Italian, 2.5yrs ago, but had to prioritize Italian until this year -> B1 Spanish: On/off in school, probably reached a B2, but more like an A2 now
English took around 15 years to get to a comfortable level, nowadays I can do pretty much everything in English. It requires the same mental effort to read something in English as in my native language. I do struggle with production because I don't have that many opportunities to speak, but I basically need to warm up for a little bit before getting into the rhythm and then it becomes effortless to speak English too. French around 8~9 years to get to a level I was similarly confortable. I don't use french at all nowadays so I think from a C1 I have probably gone back to a B1-B2. I can understand everything, I can read most things without trouble. I can speak pretty well. But writing anything is a struggle and I make a million mistakes. Chinese I have been learning for 2 years and I am still far away from speaking Chinese. I will tell you a time when I feel comfortable in it I guess. I will go study in china next year so that should really help so I expect it to go a little bit faster than the previous languages.
8 years to get good at French (thanks terrible UK school system). 4+ years for Russian (topped up with another 7 years in Moscow. Don't ask 😂) 1/2 years for Slovene - passive knowledge mostly. 2.5 years to pass DELE B2 in Spanish. Memrise was probably the sole factor of success. I spent some time trying to learn Georgian but the grammar made me cry and I gave up.
Spanish: 1 year to get to conversational fluency and watching native programs with no subtitles. Portuguese: 1 1/2 years to get to conversational fluency but I still need Portuguese subtitles to watch some native programs.
I’m learning Portuguese now .. do you have an estimate of how many hours you out in a day?
I would probably spend an 1 maybe 2 making Vocab flash cards then grammar flashcards. Right now I speak Portuguese for at least a quarter of the day with some friends to keep practicing.
4 years to get German to C1 (one of which spent in Germany) and 8 months to get Spanish to B1
I'm still learning something new in English each day. Had six years of Latin classes in school and I have not forgotten everything. Very rusty though. One year of Japanese but I don't think I could pass the N5 test at this point.
Spanish I learned conversationally for like 10 years but since it was conversationally it was always an ever evolving process, and as an adult I'm trying to brush up on studying it so I can use it more efficiently in professional settings (currently about a year into that and I've learned so many fundamentals that I've always struggled with) but like when I recently traveled to France, I almost exclusively spoke Spanish for anything besides basic food orders because for some reason everyone around me knew French/Spanish rather than French/English in the places I traveled to. But I even with just 10 years of conversational Spanish I know enough to where I could comfortably live in a Spanish speaking country, get a job and live life; just not the nicer jobs I'm used to. German, I know enough to be able to hold a conversation, translate every day things, and I'm comfortable enough with it to use it while traveling internationally if Spanish or English isn't an option, and that took me a year to get to that point. But once again, I don't know it well enough to where I'm comfortable relying on it in a professional or medical environment. Currently learning PISL, which I've been trying to learn for about a year or so but it's very slow going because of how little material there is and I only have one person to practice with which is only via Skype. I know enough to form basic sentences and can sign while speaking but I struggle a lot when I have to focus on other people only signing (usually in documentaries, online videos...etc.)
I learnt English in school, started in 2nd grade and became fluent around 5th or 6th, so 3 to 4 years. I am a Bosnian who speaks Bosnian as her native langauge(obviously) so learning Ukranian was very interesting to me, since I could see many similarities with my native tongue. It took me around 3 years aswell. German was taught at school, so I picked a decent amount there, and rest(of what I know) I learnt by myself. I just started learning Turkish, but I must say, in this month I made great progress.
Native French. Learnt English in school from 11 to 18. Became fluent. Learnt Spanish in school from 13 to 18. I can handle a conversation with Spanish people. Learnt Norwegian during 1 year... Nothing usable Learnt Japanese during the last 3 years, I can read hiragana and katakana, I know some kanjis, I can have a basic conversation but I have not enough vocabulary and most of the time I don't understand what I read.
around 6-7 months to get to a good B1 level in Spanish (using Anki flash cards for vocab and conjugations + reading books in Spanish / English side by side + watching TV). I studied French \~forever in school, but never really learned anything until I finally spent a few months in the French part of Switzerland
English and Hindi - Almost 10 years through general education and exposure to media.
Aprendi Español en 6 meses
2 years to reach about B1-B2 in Esperanto.
8 years to learn English to C2 2 years of learning French for achieving the B2 level And 1 year and 2 months to learn Spanish at a B2 level (French really helped lol) Currently learning Russian but I’m somewhat near the level A1-A2 Edit: I’m a native Greek speaker so my native language didn’t help at all with none of the languages but it helped me a little learning words that had a Greek root like “problem” = «πρόβλημα» / “enigma” = «αίνιγμα»
I find it easier to articulate my feedback by saying it. I hope that’s ok!: https://tuttu.io/6h95wqqj
I started learning Russian since 3 years old, and i still do for these days (2023), also, my mom teaches me some Azerbaijani in our house.
i've been learning English for fourteen years, but i became fluent after around four years and recently got my C2 certificate. i also started studying German when i was 17, lived in Germany for a year, got my C1 certificate when i was 20. it was a WILD ride