How long will it take me to become fluent in English? This can be a burning question for many learners. So let me give you the answer right away, guys.
It depends. And I mean it. It depends with capital letters because your progress in English depends on your past language learning experiences, how intense your study sessions are, your age, how much you practice outside of lessons.
And of course, your natural knack for picking up languages. When you have a knack for something, you have a natural aptitude or a talent or predisposition to learn that thing more easily and quicker. All right?
So the true answer for this question, the short answer will be this, it depends. But stick around because I still wanna dive a little bit deeper. this topic today.
And I want to give you some concrete numbers and figures here that will hopefully help you better plan your expectations when it comes to you and your English fluency. All right. So you don't want to miss this episode.
Stick around because we're going to unpack much more about how long it takes a person to learn English well. Hey, guys, how's it going? Thiago here and welcome to another episode of the podcast.
In case you're new here, I've created this podcast and YouTube channel to help intermediate and advanced learners of English communicate with more confidence, more accuracy, more clarity and more awareness. So if this sounds like something you want for yourself and your English, subscribe to the channel on YouTube and follow the show if you are on Spotify or Apple podcasts. All right.
As you guys can probably hear in my voice, I caught a cold and that's the reason why I couldn't upload an episode last week. I caught a cold last week, it was just impossible to talk. And now I am at the end of it.
I'm almost there, fully recovered, but I'm not 100 % yet. So please bear with me in today's episode, okay? But let's get started here.
Look, according to Cambridge English, it takes around 200 guided learning hours to move from one level of the CEFR to the next. 200 guided learning hours. For example, if you are at the B2 level and you are aiming for C1, you are looking at about 200 hours of focused, guided study.
That's a solid goal to work towards. So let's break it down. If you dedicate one hour a day, five times a week, that's five hours a week, which amounts to around 20 hours a month.
If you dedicate 20 hours a month to your English studies here, in about 10 months you will have accumulated the 200 hours you need to move from B2 to C1 level. But ideally, let's stretch it a little bit more to 12 months, one year. That way, you will have accumulated, at the end of a year, 240 hours.
That's the average. And remember that. .
. The key here is focused, guided learning hours. Guided, supervised, meaning that you either have a teacher who is closely following you in your progress or you are actually taking a formal course at a school online, face to face, doesn't matter, but a course that is well structured and that has a beginning, middle, and end.
All right? We are talking about guided, focused study hours here. That's why I usually recommend people who are at B2 to set aside at least a year to prepare for C1 if they wanna get to C1 because that's the usual amount of time it takes a person to move from one level of the CEFR to the next.
So here we have a table and you can find this table. on the Cambridge English website. This is really cool guys, because as you can see here, we have the six levels on the CEFR moving from A1, the beginner level, all the way to C2, the ultimate proficient level, all right?
And notice that you have the number of hours approximately that a person needs to accumulate to reach a certain level. Keep in mind that the hours here, they build on top of each other. So let's take the C1 level as an example.
For a person to go from complete beginner, A1, all the way to C1, according to the table here, this person needs to accumulate between 700 and 800 hours of guided studies. Okay, so from beginner all the way to advanced. So how much is that?
Let's run some math here again. So let me open my calculator here. So remember that if you follow that routine of one hour per day, five times a week, that's 20 hours a month in a year is like 240 hours.
So let's say that you keep that up, okay? 240 hours per year, that will take you between three and four years, okay? So a person starting English today from zero to get to the C1 level, that person is looking at least at three years, okay?
At least, you know? Because remember guys, three years here, if you follow this routine of studying one hour per day, Monday to Friday, for three years, okay? But sometimes we're not gonna be able to study one hour per day every day.
We will skip some days. We're gonna get sick. We're gonna catch a cold, right?
So that's why I say to give yourself between three and five years to reach a solid level of efficiency and fluency. You see, it's not just my opinion, okay? Yes, it is based on my experience, what I observe in my students, but also look at this table.
You can find this table on the Cambridge English website, All right? So again, from A1 to C1, a person couldn't expect to spend between three and four years at least to reach that level. Okay?
Of course, remember, some people might get that a little bit faster. Others might take longer because as I said at the beginning, there are other variables, okay? At play here.
Let's do another simulation. So imagine you are here at the B1 level. Yeah, I imagine that most of you listening would consider yourselves B1 level speakers of English.
That's an intermediate level. That means that if you are at a B1 already, you must have accumulated by now around 350 or 400 hours of studies and practice. Whether you realize this or not, on average you must have accumulated around those hours already.
So if you want to move from B1 to B2, just add 200 hours on top of that. Remember, it takes 200 hours on average to move from one level to the next. So give yourself about a year, study one hour per day, provided that the quality of the studies support this goal of reaching the B2 level.
And in about a year, probably if you sit in an exam at B2 level, you will pass. And the same thing goes for, you know, from B2 to C1, and finally from C1 to C2. Notice that to reach the last level, C2 proficiency, the person needs to accumulate between 1,000 and 1200 hours of studies and practice.
So I believe that would be around five years, wouldn't it guys? mean, again, 20 hours a month times 12, that's 240 hours per year. So following the same, let's say routine here, studying one hour per day.
A person will go from A1 to C2 in about five years. You see, so it's something fast. It's not fast.
Okay. It takes you a few years to get there. All right.
And hopefully this gives you more clarity now. At the end of the day, yes, it does depend on the person. But even in that case, even though someone might be more talented for language learning and might pick it up faster, there's still an average here.
That's why I always say in my episodes, between three and five years of focused studies is a good amount of time for you to give yourself. Now, before I close this topic here, here are some further considerations about this topic, okay? I don't know if you have heard of the book Outliers.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book, he presents the famous 10,000 hour rule. It's a theory that is presented in this book, which basically claims that for you to reach a high level of mastery in something, for you to become really, really good at something, you need to spend around 10,000 hours, you know, practicing that thing, honing your craft, studying and practicing that.
All right. Now, this 10,000 hour rule thing has already been subject to debate a lot. You know, some people don't agree with it.
There are counter arguments about this. But one thing that I like about this theory of the 10,000 hour rule is that it communicates the idea that it's going to take time. You don't necessarily need 10,000 hours to be a master English speaker.
But it will take time. So as we saw there at the table, minimum of 1,200 hours, if you want to get to the highest level of efficiency, you can get to as a non-native speaker of English. OK?
So I'm not here to advocate whether this theory, this rule is true or not. OK? But I do want to stress that a positive thing about this theory is that it communicates the idea that it takes time.
And if you really want to master something, you need many years honing that. All right? Now, something else that I want to leave you with is this idea.
In my opinion, guys, learning should be a lifelong endeavor. Okay? And I believe that you should be a learner, not a student.
What's the difference between being a learner and a student? In my mind, a student learns for a specific period of time. You know, when you go to school, you are a student, right?
We usually, you know, we go through elementary school, high school, and then college. But then after you graduate, you can stop studying. Like most people do, they stop studying after they get their degrees.
You see, but. . .
In my mind, this is more of a student's mindset, you know? It's more of a student's way of thinking. I prefer to have more of a learner mindset or a learner way of thinking.
While the student learns for a specific period of time, a learner learns for life. So you are always learning something new about the topics that interest you. You're always digging a little bit deeper, reflecting on them, always in touch with them.
This to me, looks more productive and it looks more like what we call lifelong learning. So what I would recommend when it comes to you and your English is yes, have specific goals that are time bound, maybe for levels if you are still studying, right? But remember that ultimately, even if you get that C1 level you want or that C2 level you want, you know, even if you maybe get a proficiency exam that testifies that.
Don't stop. Don't stop learning. Don't stop polishing your communication skills in English because it's a lifelong process.
Okay? So I hope you found this information useful to you. And remember, while it depends, you know, it varies from person to person, at the end of the day, you want to give yourself, you know, at least three to five years to get to a very good, decent level of English proficiency and fluency.
Okay? And enjoy the process. Enjoy the process.
Don't focus so much on that goal that you have. Just enjoy. Have fun learning English.
Have a good time doing it. And before you know it, you will have reached the level you wanted all along. Okay?
So now before we wrap up today's episode, let's go to the learner's corner. And for the learner's corner this week, I have here a very nice and long email by Christian. Let's read it.
Hi Tiago, I hope you're doing well. I've been wanting to send you this email for a long time now. Honestly, I don't think you will remember me.
My name is Christian and I live in Rio Grande do Sul with my wife and kids. By the way guys, when you have names of places like this, I mean this is the state, a state here in Brazil, right? You don't have to pronounce it with an English accent or pronunciation, you know?
So I read it. because I speak Portuguese and I am from Brazil, I read it like a Brazilian. I'm going to say Rio Grande do Sul because that's the name of the place.
I'm not going to say Rio Grande do Sul, or just Sul, something like that. So keep that in mind whenever you are sharing with native speakers about maybe specific places and cities where you're from, just say them as you normally pronounce them because that's the real name. I was really happy when you created EWT on YouTube.
it's a cool acronym here, yeah? EWT for English with Tiago. I like that.
I've always followed your videos and commented on most of them. But once you launch the podcast on Spotify, that's where I've been keeping up with your work. Don't worry though, my like is on all your YouTube videos.
thank you so much, I appreciate that. I also follow your posts on LinkedIn and I find them incredibly insightful. It's great to see how you're impacting people across different platforms.
Recently, I saw your post about hitting 100,000 subscribers and I want to congratulate you on that. Your work is amazing and I'm sure those 100,000 are just the beginning. Thank you very much.
To be honest, I've recommended your channel to at least 20 people who, like me, are trying to improve their English. And honestly, you make that journey so much easier. I'd like to share a personal story with you so you can understand the reason for this email and how your passion for teaching English is helping me achieve a dream.
So I work in construction here in Brazil. I've been a carpenter for 15 years and I have been searching for work opportunities abroad, specifically in Canada, so I can move there with my family. For a year, I practiced conversation with a native Canadian teacher.
When I showed her your channel, she couldn't believe you were Brazilian. She not only praised your English, but also encouraged me to consume all the content you had on YouTube alongside her lessons. She even watched the videos herself and told me to keep following you.
What was the result of that? I was able to participate in online interviews with Canadian employers without needing an interpreter. In April 2022, one of those employers decided to hire me while I was still in Brazil.
However, I needed a CLB 5 on the IELTS for that to happen. Now think about this. I have been practicing only conversation to present my resume and skills here in Brazil.
I scheduled the IELTS test study for two or three months, but I had no idea about the test structure. What was the outcome? Listening for reading 3.
5 writing 4. 5 speaking 5 overall for Intermediate be one. Yeah, that's an interesting comment here Christian because you know, even though You were already practicing English like generally speaking right you had no idea about the test structure So maybe the reason why you got the score was mostly related to that not related to your level of English per se, but your familiarity with the exam.
That's why guys, whenever you decide to sit a specific proficiency exam, give yourself time to learn about that exam, how it works, the timing, the structure, and spend some time doing some mock tests, some simulations, to really become familiar with the test, okay? So depending on the level you want to go for, between six months and one year, That's a good amount of time for you to prepare for one of those proficiency exams, okay? Let's continue with the email here.
Unfortunately, I lost that opportunity because I needed five in all bands. Believe me, it was incredibly frustrating, but I didn't give up. I kept studying and practicing my conversation skills.
In total, I participated in 15 online interviews. And now things are finally moving in the right direction again. I believe this change is going to happen soon.
I really wanted to take your private lessons, but unfortunately, I couldn't afford them due to all the expenses I've been having in Canadian dollars. This prevented me from making an extra investment. That's okay, though, because I've made a promise to myself.
Once I'm in Canada, I'll reach out to you again and finally take lessons with you. let me know. Just reach out and we can talk.
Okay? Man, I'm sorry to bother you and for sending such a long email. No, it's been great, you know?
Maybe you're not comfortable reading or even knowing the story of a complete stranger, but I just wanted to express my deep appreciation and gratitude for how much your work has helped me. You're not just a great teacher, you're truly a distant friend who helps so many people in need. Once again, thank you so much for your kindness and dedication through your work with English.
I wish you all the best and may your work and your life always be blessed by God. Best regards, Christian Cremonti. Very nice email, Christian.
Thank you so much for being a long time follower of my work, of the channel here, the podcast. I really wish that you are able to achieve your dreams, realize your dreams there of moving to Canada with your family. All right.
And keep me posted. Yeah. If it does happen, you know, send me another email or an auto message and then I'll be glad to, you know, to know, you know, that you are living in Canada already as you so want to.
OK. But thank you so much for the kind words and for the email. It was very nice to read it.
And I'm sure that the listeners here are the followers also appreciated you sharing a little bit more about your story. OK. And now on to you guys.
If you want to do it just like Christian, you can send me an email sharing your story, your testimonial. If you have a question for me, just write me at hello. teacherchiago.
com. Okay. Or if you prefer, you can also send me an auto message of about 90 seconds by going to speakpipe.
com slash English with Chiago. All right. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel.
Follow the show on Spotify or Apple podcasts and check out here in the description of the video, there are some links for useful resources. There are some free resources here that you can download and also some paid resources that can help you take your learning even further. So all the links that you need are here in the description of the video, also in the pin column below.
If you're on Spotify, you can find the links in the show notes of this episode. Guys, thank you so much for listening to today's episode, I'm Thiago, I'm signing off and I'll be talking to you very soon in the upcoming episode. Bye bye.
