How long learn language

Category III contains no European languages at all though it does contain Indonesian, widely regarded as one of the objectively easiest languages to learn. Category IV offers a huge variety of languages from Amharic to Czech to Nepali to Tagalog, each demanding 44 weeks or hours of study.

Now if, like me, you consider studying foreign languages one of your main pursuits, you know that possessing a genuine interest in a language — in its mechanics, in its ongoing evolution, in the cultures that created it and the cultures it in turn creates — can do wonders to get you through even the most aggravating difficulties on the long journey to commanding it.

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities and culture. Follow him on Twitter at colinmarshall or on Faceboo k. We accept Paypal, Venmo, Patreon, even Crypto! To donate, click here. We thank you! Category IV: For your information, Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian are identical and the same languages which can be written with two alphabets; Cyrillic and Latin alphabet!

Belgium do not have a language! Australia do not have a language! Canada do not have a language! As a college language instructor in Japan, a student of the Japanese language and Welsh , I wonder if the categories work in reverse….

I notice that Korean Hangul is supposedly one of the hardest languages to learn, but this is false. Yes, it is very visually different from English and of course it sounds a lot more like Korean than English, but Hangul was specifically created to be an easy language to learn so that literacy could be easily achieved throughout Korea. Why no mention of any of the Celtic languages?

I am also curious where other African languages are ranked only saw Xhosa and Swahili , down to the clicks spoken by the San. Australian and Pacific languages missing. Native American tongues also not ranked. Can you flesh this out? French, like most other western European languages, is far easier than any of the Asian languages.

I might have a unique perspective, as a Dane living in South Korea with a french girlfriend, but I have no expend almost no effort to catch a lot of french words, because there are so many that are the same as the english words, with a small change.

Is there a weekly hour cap on how many hours a person spend? Perhaps they are referring to learning all the possible variants, but for a single variant its no where near hours. Korean should not be listed there. Korean can be seen as a simplified Chinese and Japanese. The vocabularies are derived from Chinese and grammar is very similar to Japanese but easier. Why is german, a germanic language, more difficult than e.

Well i dunno details about the differences of arabic and hebrew, i just assume the grammar or the diversity is just more hard. Identical is neither of those languages. Very similar yes. Serbian does differ from Croatian, so does Austrian. I think it is wrong to equate easiness with closeness of relation to English. German is much more closely related to English than Spanish. Spanish is just an objectively easy language to learn, and German is hard.

The color scheme of this graph is pretty off, do consider using diverging pallete or something similar. The only languages that are covered are those that the FSI teaches. They will be teaching languages that are diplomatically useful, that is ones used by national governments that the US sends ambassadors to.

Finally, the difficulty is for English-native adult learners. Spoken languages are all about equally difficult for non-verbal children to learn as a native language. But for English-native adults, the important things are the amount of shared vocabulary, phonology and grammar with English. First, its script is notoriously hard for English speakers, because characters are always joined and there are changes in shape e. Having to learn two or three forms of the same language, with different phonology and grammar is inevitably going to take longer than just one.

German might be more closely related, but English has much more Romance vocabulary than Germanic we use the Germanic words more, but there are more Romance words.

Their subjunctive and conditional moods are bona fide moods, not just composite of other moods and modal verbs…. Prepositions merge with articles, many nouns can have two different genders, adjectives must match in number and gender….

Likely because Arabic varies widely between regions. Speaking Arabic in Morocco is very different than speaking Arabic in Egypt or Saudi, so much that even native speakers of one region have significant difficulty understanding others from a different region. Hangul is just the alphabet. Yeah, the Korean alphabet is easier to learn than most. Could it be Catalan falls in the same difficulty category as Spanish and French so that no distinguishing color is shown in Catalonia, Andorra and rest of regions?

Serbian and Croatian does differ slightly in pronunciation and some of words but base is These charts look illuminating but they also hide a lot. I should hasten to add that we were all born good language learners — hence all of us become fluent in our mother tongue in much the same time.

And that poor language learners can become good language learners once they let go of disempowering beliefs, attitudes and practices. Of course it helps to take on ones that lead them to become good language learners!

Alphabet is more complex most letters change shape depending on whether they are in initial, middle, or final position in a word 2. Grammar is similar, but more complex 3.

Arabic has a glottal stop, and two or more? Modern Hebrew syntax and tense structure has been influenced by European languages, Arabic, not. The time mentioned in this list really means how long time they take in the class to get some level in the language.

The difficulty depends on what you want to reach. Probably a lot less. At the same time, none of the Romance languages belongs in that category. Hangul is the Korean alphabet, not the language. I learned the Hangul alphabet in two days, but that does not mean I can speak the language. You must also contend with forms of speech honorifics to differentiate who you are talking to.

You speak differently to someone younger, older or in a position of authority than you would to someone of equal age or status. Just a warning that the upper poster is wrong. Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian are definitely not the same language. Very similar, yes, but with many different words and some grammar rules are different!

I am a native speaker of one of those languages and have trouble fully understanding the others. There are simply many cases where we have have one word for it in one language and the other in the other language.

I have friends who disagree… But it usually turns out that they were exposed to both languages as kids so they automatically learned both.

I also think this is a generational thing — older members of my family who learned and used both languages tend to view them as more similar, but us kids find many differences and it feels like different languages altogether. In general understanding the German language is not difficult it took me a week but mastering it is almost an impossibility.

To: Kris Lindbeck — Your point 3 is incorrect. The standard accent in Israel is not Ashkenazi, it is Sephardic. Hebrew also has a letter with a glottal stop, like the letter Ayin in my name in Hebrew.

It also has 2 kh sounds, one slightly softer than the other. Go study at the David Yellin Institute in Jerusalem if you really want to understand the Hebrew language. For me French is more difficult than Kiswahili. Kiswahili Sox month and my command is good. Indonesian is much easier to learn than any other foreign language.

The grammar is simplistic. There are no tenses, no conjugation, and no word genders. Learning a new language becomes much easier if you combine it with something else you enjoy — for instance, watching a football game with foreign commentary Credit: Getty Images. And which language you learn depends on your personal motivations, says Beverly Baker, an associate professor and director of language assessment at the University of Ottawa. Once your intentions for the new language are defined, you can begin planning out a productive hourly schedule for daily practice that includes multiple learning methods.

Language-learning programmes are important, but spending time with a native or skilled speaker is the most effective method Credit: Getty Images. Just like exercise or musical instruments, people recommend a shorter amount of practice time on a regular basis rather than larger chunks on a more sporadic basis. Baker says this is because without a consistent schedule the brain fails to engage in any deep cognitive processes, like making connections between new knowledge and your previous learning.

According to the FSI index, it would take 96 weeks at this pace to achieve basic fluency in a Group 1 language, or nearly two years. But by following the advice from experts, narrowing down your lessons for specific applications rather than general fluency, new speakers will be able to shave off significant time towards reaching their desired level.

According to Baker, intercultural competence is the ability to build successful relationships with a variety of people from other cultures. I think it also depends on HOW you learn the language. I had 2 years of French in junior high and 4 years in high school. This was back in the s, when languages were taught mostly by textbook with verb conjugation drills. Things have really changed! Language learning seems to be more natural now. I just hope the new methods are effective. Are there any studies to show the effectivess of different language programs?

I already know a bit of each, but not much, and the summer holidays are coming up, so I have a lot of time up my sleeve. How many hours a day would you recommend? Do as much as you can handle really, and do it seriously. The time would pass anyways.

Let your progress creep up on you. Nice, your concept of 5 levels of proficiency is interesting. I agree with you thanks for the sharing. Who has time for that??

I still have to work, be a mother, a wife, and a dog mom! Can someone give me a realistic time expectancy? Thanks for sharing this Great article I appreciate the valuable time you have used to share this. To be truly fluent you will be learning for the rest of your life. Learning a language is a never ending process. I study every day and practice every day with my girlfriend who only speaks Portuguese.

What is the trick to be able to understand the second language instead of translating? I translate the other words I know in my head. I particularly recommend our Brazilian mini-stories on LingQ.

Different voices telling simple stories with lots of repetition. I have used this method and end up listening to the stories times. Go for it. You must be logged in to post a comment.

I speak 20 languages. Learning Techniques. View all 49 comments. I did 10 hours a day for a month when I was off uni. Why there is no group for Nordic languages like Danish or Norwegian? They are in the easy group. Nordic languages are in group 1 like most Indo -European languages. Some Slavic languages are even in Group 3. We have benefited the subject thanks. Nowadays, learning any language is really difficult. Fortunately, I was able to find out more about these cases and figure out where I needed to go.

Consider where a translator may provide a translation from translate english to french when choosing a professional translator. They were incredibly helpful, and I am appreciative for their efforts. I hope I was also able to help someone else with this! Your Name required. Your Email required.

Your Website optional. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Admission is free! Home Meaningful Travel Language Travel. Discussion 5 Comments nice thanks a lot.

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