There is no single number of hours that applies to everyone. Published estimates run from several hundred hours to a couple of thousand, and the right figure for you depends on your starting language, your target language, and what you mean by “learned”.
The short answer
The most-quoted estimates come from the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI). For English speakers, they range from roughly 575 to 750 hours for the languages ranked easiest, up to around 2,200 hours for the hardest. Those figures describe a particular goal and a particular kind of student, so they are best treated as a rough guide rather than a promise.
What the FSI estimates measure
The FSI trains diplomats and other government staff. Its estimates are usually described as the time needed for English-speaking students to reach “professional working proficiency” in speaking and reading. Things to keep in mind:
- The numbers are based on class hours in an intensive program, and are generally understood to assume additional self-study on top.
- The target is a fairly high, work-related level, not casual travel conversation.
- The students are adults who study full time, with trained teachers.
If your goal is ordering food and chatting with neighbours, you will not need the full figure. If your goal is working in the language every day, you may need more than a casual schedule suggests.
FSI categories
The FSI groups languages by how difficult they are for English speakers.
| Category | Examples | Rough guide |
|---|---|---|
| I (closest to English) | Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese | About 24 to 30 weeks, or 575 to 750 class hours |
| II and III | Languages such as German or Indonesian, and others | In between the figures for categories I and IV |
| IV (most difficult) | Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | About 88 weeks, or around 2,200 class hours |
Check the FSI’s own current lists for exact placements, because secondary sites sometimes group languages differently.
Hours and CEFR levels
Another way to think about hours is by level on the CEFR scale (A1 to C2). Exam bodies publish approximate “guided learning hours” for each level, and these are often given as a few hundred hours to reach B1, and more than a thousand to reach C2. These are guidelines for classroom learning, and they vary between providers and between languages. Treat them as the same kind of estimate as the FSI ones: useful for planning, not guarantees.
What changes the number
- Language distance. Spanish, French and Italian share a lot of vocabulary with English; languages with different writing systems and grammar usually take longer for English speakers. If Spanish is your target, our guide to the quickest way to learn Spanish shows how to turn your available hours into a weekly plan.
- Your goal. Reading a menu, holding a conversation and passing a professional exam are very different targets.
- Quality of study. An hour of focused listening plus speaking with feedback is not the same as an hour of half-attention. See our language learning methods guide for how input and output fit together.
- Consistency. Regular short sessions are easier to sustain than occasional long ones, though both count.
- Other languages you know. Having learned one foreign language before often helps with the next.
- Exposure outside study. Time spent with media and people in the language counts toward your total; see the best input sources for language learners.
Do high-IQ people learn languages faster? What are the easiest and hardest languages?
Language aptitude exists, and people differ in how easily they pick up sounds and patterns. But general intelligence is only part of the picture. Motivation, time, practice habits and opportunities to use the language usually matter a great deal. Nobody can reliably predict your speed from a single trait.
On “easiest” and “hardest”: it depends on the language you already speak. For English speakers, the FSI places Spanish and French among the easier ones and Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean among the harder ones. For a speaker of Korean or Arabic, the ranking would look different.
What about the 80/20 rule?
The 80/20 idea, borrowed from the Pareto principle, is often applied to languages in this way: a relatively small set of common words and patterns covers a large share of everyday speech. There is truth in the general idea that frequent words are worth learning first. But the exact percentages are rough, and the last stretch of fluency, such as idioms, fast speech and nuance, takes time that early shortcuts do not remove.
Making your hours count
- Decide your target: conversation, reading, an exam, or work.
- Track hours roughly, so that you can see real progress rather than guess.
- Mix understandable input with speaking or writing practice.
- Review regularly. Notebook-based approaches such as the Goldlist method are one option, among many.
- If progress stalls, check our guide to common language learning problems.