According to FSI research, it takes around 480 hours of practice to reach basic fluency in all Group 1 languages.
True language fluency requires consistent effort and time, and while 500 – 1,000 hours may seem like a lot, a typical person could probably invest that level of time over 12 – 18 months, with the right study schedule.
The short answer is as much as possible.
Realistically, however, at least 20 minutes per day should be dedicated to learning a new language. The ideal amount of time to spend on daily study, if you can find the time, is an hour, but you don't need to cram it all in at once.
Generally speaking the many hours of practice necessary in Extensive Listening, Extensive Reading and Study Abroad to achieve language mastery is 10,000 hours. This demonstrates, just how much continued, long term and extensive practice is needed in order to become proficient.
For most people, around 30 minutes of active study and 1 hour of language exposure a day is a schedule that will give you great results. It's a model that's sustainable over a long period to help you reach fluency. But of course, it all depends on your goals and expectations.
We see this question a lot and the answer is: yes. Duolingo is a free language-learning platform, and every language and lesson is totally free!
Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
Norwegian
Like English, Norwegian or “Norsk” is a Germanic language, which makes it easier for English-speakers to learn. It shares quite a bit of vocabulary with English, and unlike some Germanic languages, the pronunciation of most Norwegian words is fairly straightforward.
Easiest (about 600 hours of study)
Of these, Spanish and Italian are the easiest for native English speakers to learn, followed by Portuguese and finally French.
The Defense Language Institute (Where CIA Spies Study Languages) The Defense Language Institute (“DLI”), located in Monterey, California, is where the CIA, members of the U.S. armed forces and various other government agencies go to learn foreign languages.
No matter how old you are, you're never too old to learn a new language. However, because your brain's ability to adapt and change decreases over time, you'll probably have to practice more.
They've suggested that a person can become fluent in language for social contexts in six months to two years. However, it can take 5-7 years to become fluent in academic language. So within one year, it's absolutely possible to get fluent in a language for social uses, although probably not for academic purposes.
To understand 95% of a language and become conversational fluent may require 3 months of applied learning; to reach the 98% threshold could require 10 years. There is a point of diminishing returns where, for most people, it makes more sense to acquire more languages (or other skills) vs.
It does not matter how old you are, it is never too late to start learning a foreign language. Many language learners are put off by their advancing years; they believe age is a barrier to learning an entirely new language. However, this is not the case.
Answer: Thankfully, your brain can definitely handle learning two (or more!) languages at once! (Two down, 6,998 to go.) But there are also some ways you can make this linguistic task easier on yourself.
In what could be the most surprising conclusion, the researchers say that even among native speakers it takes 30 years to fully master a language. The study showed a slight improvement—roughly one percentage point—in people who have been speaking English for 30 versus 20 years.
Generally, if you're an English speaker with no exposure to other languages, here are some of the most challenging and difficult languages to learn: Mandarin Chinese. Arabic. Vietnamese.
The grammar of Hungarian is significantly different from that of Indo-European languages such as English. The language has no grammatical gender and it uses suffixes instead of prepositions which makes Hungarian one of the most difficult languages in the world.
“When learning a new language, bilinguals rely more than monolinguals on the brain processes that people naturally use for their native language,” Lead author Sarah Grey added, “We also find that bilinguals appear to learn the new language more quickly than monolinguals.”
First Language
Mandarin Chinese tops the list of most commonly spoken native languages with 870 million native speakers. With less than 200 million second language speakers, the vast majority of Mandarin speakers are native and also located in mainland China.
1) Esperanto.
Because of that goal, Esperanto has a simple grammar, easy rules and a lot of words that resemble words from other languages. It was built to be simple and to be learned with minimum effort.
2. Arabic. Arabic is the queen of poetic languages, the 6th official language of the UN and second on our list of toughest languages to learn.
Most religious scholars and historians agree with Pope Francis that the historical Jesus principally spoke a Galilean dialect of Aramaic. Through trade, invasions and conquest, the Aramaic language had spread far afield by the 7th century B.C., and would become the lingua franca in much of the Middle East.