How Long Does It REALLY Take To Learn a Language?
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⏰ 📆 Can you really learn a language to fluency in a few months? If you want to know how long it REALLY takes to learn a language, stick around. You won't want to miss this!
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🕰️ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – How long does it REALLY take to learn a language?
0:23 – Category I
7:07 – Category II
10:45 – Category III
14:29 – Category IV
20:22 – Category V
🎬 Video Clips:
And Tagalog spoken by the lady
Once you have learned a few you know what to look for in a new language, even if it is completely different from the ones you know already.
I’ve recently picked up your Short Stories in French book! Looking forward to implementing that read & practice into my studies. Great video!
Paul noble book and audio course is better and cheaper.
@@nsevv Can you elaborate on what makes it “better”? I paid $15 for my book which is less than a meal these days so the cost isn’t an issue. I do appreciate the suggestion though as it’s something to look into for continued studies. Sidenote: Paul Noble’s book alone is $18.99 which is more expensive.
What’s your language level right now? 👉🏼 https://youtu.be/yBTjkYoQj4E?si=JhFAPhzQqm1BDZNC
Mystery language is Tagalog at cat 4 if I remember correctly. I have B2 Tagalog, C2 English, A1 Hungarian + currently learning German.
Im learning turkish and i think im between A2 and B1 level
Very low lol. Not even A1 in Hungarian. Could probably scrape A1 in German if I get my brain into gear.
I am dying with Swahili it’s 5 category because it has no content at all
C2 English C2 Bulgarian B2 Spanish A1 Greek and Italian and Portuguese
I’ve been studying Finnish every day for hours for 5 months and I’m barely A2…
Focus on high frequency vocabulary and grammar only.
A2 in Finnish is not even remotely bad if you’ve only studied for 5 months. Keep going, you have this native speaker’s support. 🙂
Babadum Clozemaster Busuu Drops Duolingo
Babadum Clozemaster Busuu Drops Duolingo
I’ve been studying Hebrew for slightly over a year, and I am probably at a mid-A2 level. Some people learn languages more slowly, and some languages are naturally much more difficult to learn.
I’m truly a StoryLearning veteran now Olly. I’ve finished French Uncovered till B1, four books (Short Stories Simple, Intermediate, Conversations Simple and Intermediate) and am currently enjoying Subjunctive Made Simple. I also correctly guessed Tagalog and already speak two category IV languages – Hindi and Marathi. My aim is B2 Spanish post B2 French!
amazing!
To be clear, Hindi’s inclusion in Category IV—requiring 44 weeks or 1,100 class hours of study—is only for native English speakers who don’t speak any other language. Whereas if you speak any language from the Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan) family fluently, then Hindi would be an easy Category I.
Marathi is not categorized or taught by the FSI, as it’s not an international diplomatic language. But I think I know what you mean. Of course, to anyone who already knows Hindi or other Sanskrit-family languages, Marathi too would be an easy Category I (or II at worst).
When I started studying Russian, I thought the cyrillic alphabet was hard. Then I thought it was the six cases. But boy, oh boy, I was not ready for the verbs: those are probably the real beast 😂
Как долго вы учите русский?
@@erturtemirbaev5207 я начал изучать русский язык шесть месяцев назад, I’m just a beginner 🤣
I tried to learn Russian once but gave up it s really really hard I don’t understand how people learn this language they must be a genius.
Чисто из любопытства, зачем вообще учить русский? Смысл в этом какой?
@@yvfj155 я люблю изучать языки, а я хочу изучать один славянский язык. Also, it’s a bit more challenging than, say, spanish or italian 🤭
But holy moly, it is painful at times 🤣
“Do you recognize… THIS language?”
*says “easy Italian” in the upper right hand corner*
But did you recognise it?
Im a native arabic speaker and i can confirm that even us arabs face difficulties in our language 😂
We Arabs, 😉
I’ve been studying Arabic for a little over a year and can only do basic conversations in Fusha.
Spend time with native Arabic speakers as they live their daily lives.
@@rollizle
@@antonboludo8886but the don’t really live their daily lives completely in fusha, mostly dialects
Yes. I suppose you are wanting to learn Classical Arabic and not one of the dialects.
@@m_ron2742
I initially thought Tagalog but the different script threw me off and stumped me 🤣 good one, Olly!
That’s a script that used to be used for Tagalog. Now it’s written in Latin.
It was the Brahmic script. Some of the languages in the Philippines used to be written in it, and some still do. The script could be mixed up with the other languages that still use it across the Asian continent at first glance.
That script is called Baybayin. It’s not used but taught in sort of elective classes at uni level I believe.
@@darktheme2192 The Brahmic script was widely used. Good to know that it is somewhat offered in the Philippines for people to learn Baybayin. It is too bad other systems like Kulitan, Palaw’an, Buhid, etc…
It is also too bad other places like Indonesia is not using their versions as much either.
Currently learning Japanese and I’m having a blast! It’s a journey, not a rush 🙂
Wanikani is awesome for Kanji if you didn’t already know
So desu ne?
Same man, I had no idea it would be this hard but 3 years later I’m still having so much fun and it’s one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had
頑張ってください！
Good. It is supposed to be fun.
@@dethswurl117
Same, although at times that journey can feel like having your tires stuck in a mud in the middle of nowhere and having to call emergency help.
Don’t forget that these won’t apply to you if your native language isn’t English though!
I.e. French and Portuguese are probably Category 4 for me, while Mongolian and Korean are Category 1, as a native Turkish speaker.
But it’ll of course be easier to learn German and Dutch after learning English either way, let alone the availability of high quality resources.
Take your own language and also the ones you’ve learned so far into account before approaching such lists 🙂
Lastly, don’t get lost in such details, just learn whichever the one that motivates you the most!!
True! if the place you live is, for historical reason, “bilingual,”your brain will identify the other language as “not so foreign”, and it will understand the logic and above all the culture of this language, even if you don’t like it. This is the case in the former German-occupied zones of France.
Imo there is no such thing as a “difficult language”, the difficulty depends on your mother tongue (or the languages you have already learned)
Agree, as a Korean myself, Japanese is the easiest language to learn because we share very similar syntax and ways of thinking
Exactly as for me russian s much harder than Japanese for example
I think they should create a category VI just for Navajo. That language is completely insane.
Then again, as Olly said, US diplomats don’t need to learn the Navajo language, because they speak to the Navajo people in English. Hence they don’t teach it at the FSI, nor have they assigned a category to it. The US government has left it entirely up to the Navajo people to preserve their language, population, and way of life—like it has with all indigenous Americans who’ve managed to survive till now.
@@nHans Unfortunately many indigenous groups don’t see preserving their language as much of a priority. In Canada it was proposed in one province that anyone, including non indigenous people had to learn an indigenous language to work at an indigenous owned casino. The people who rejected the idea was non other than the indigenous elders.
The big contributing factor was those very elders did not speak any other language aside from English.
Lots of languages would be level 6 but they aren’t major languages. Bantu languages, North Caucasian etc
@@Matt-jc2ml The languages with an Asterix could technically be put in their own category of difficulty.
The level 4 languages such as: Estonian, Hungarian, Finnish, Mongolian, Georgian, Thai and Vietnamese.
They should be labelled as level 5.
Level 6 should be Cantonese, Mandarin, Arabic, Korean.
Level 7 Japanese.
I knew it was Tagalog because I’m a native speaker. I want to say though that in the Philippines it’s officially known as Filipino, which is the national language based on Tagalog (the biggest ethnic group and situated around Manila, the country’s capital) but which incorporates elements from Spanish,, English, Chinese and other languages. It’s a beautifully expressive language but I agree it can be a challenge for anglophones to learn. (I have C2 English and B2 French, currently learning Spanish).
My native language is Swedish and when I was a kid we started to learn English in school at ten and the third language at 13. I was pretty tired of school by then so my choice was German since I was told it was easier than French. I didn’t really want to learn German so I later studied French for a year. During that year we had classes several hours a week and used a studio to practice speaking and listening. So in a year my French surpassed the four years of German I had studied earlier. This was in the 1980s something so I don’t speak either language today. But, I had use of both languages alongside Spanish, Italian and Latin while I was studying classical singing. And I am very grateful for my teachers in German for their persistence in teaching the importance of grammar and usage, which benefited me greatly when I later took English at university level, and when learning to understand and sing in new languages
This is an EXCELLENT video. I enjoyed it immensely. I hope people from all around the world watch it!
Let’s be honest, thats 3 hours a day and every day. On average, no casual learner who is spending 15 minutes every day will become fluent in less than a decade.
My study journey was unbearably lonely without a peer. Your vlogs alleviated that, but language barriers hinder me. Now, I’m using Immersive Translate to enhance my language skills and hope to comprehend your videos independently.
One never really finishes learning any language even your native one.