Techniques and method are often more important than time put in. So ask yourself, how much time are you willing to put in? What method are you using? It takes time for our brain to make neural connections around the language we're learning. Mileage is just as important because binge learning rarely works over the long haul. The person that spends 10 hours a week for a year will likely be further ahead than a person spending 1 hour a week for three months.
Take two people that have the same capability, who are using the same method of learning. Learning any new skill requires two major things: mileage and repetition.īoth require time and commitment over the long haul. How much time do you have to learn German? This may seem like a lot of time, but it's a fraction compared to languages like Chinese, Japanese and Arabic, which took students up to 88 weeks to learn. In short, the FSI estimated that learning German will take approximately 30 weeks (750 hours) for English speakers. You may also be wondering what the official answer is to 'how long does it take to learn German.'The U.S Foreign Service Institute performed a study that found this to be true using the Interagency Language Roundtable Scale. The good news is, German and English come from the same family: the Germanic family. Languages have their individual family origins, and those that come from the same family will share similar characteristics. Or learning a new instrument (ukulele) that's similar to an instrument you can play (guitar). How similar is it to the language(s) you already speak? It's similar to learning a new sport (rugby) that's similar to the one you can already play (football). This is probably the first and most impactful question you should ask when learning any new language. Do I already know a similar language to German? So before we answer the time it takes to learn German, we're going to share the following questions you should be asking yourself. The truth is, there needs to be more context when you ask a question like 'How Long Does It Take to Learn German?' And the way you get more context is by asking more open-ended questions about your current proficiency, previous experience, learning schedule, and more. While German is not exactly one of the easiest languages to learn, Mark Twain's statement above is exaggerated. Especially if you can only speak one language.
Learning how to speak German can feel intimidating. To give you a better idea of what’s included in each course, I took a closer look at the Spanish, Egyptian Arabic, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Mandarin courses."A gifted person ought to learn English in 30 hours, French in 30 days and German in 30 years" -Mark Twain
While the conversations you’ll hear in each course are pretty similar, the depth and features of each course are different.
One thing that’s important to note is that each Pimsleur language course is different. Other major language apps, like Rosetta Stone, Babbel, and Mondly, make you subscribe to each language individually. If you want to learn multiple languages, there is a separate subscription that lets you access all courses. When you subscribe to the Pimsleur app, you get access to one language course. Pimsleur currently offers 51 languages: Albanian, Arabic (Eastern), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Modern Standard), Armenian (Eastern), Armenian (Western), Chinese (Cantonese), Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari Persian, Dutch, Farsi Persian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Ojibwe, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (European), Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Spanish (Latin American), Spanish (Spain-Castilian), Swahili, Swedish, Swiss German, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Twi, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Vietnamese.