How long did it take you to learn the language?

My background: I'm in my early 40s. I grew up with strong bilingual influence, but not in a bilingual household. My mother is French, but my dad claims to have zero facility with languages and the house was English-only. French was spoken constantly around my mom's family, we traveled to France often, and we were obliged to take it in school, but I wasn't much of a French student. I got out of high school with little more ability than the average four-year high school language student.

These days, I speak C2-level French (the highest they will test non-natives to) and C1-level Spanish. I speak B1/B2 level Italian and German.

When we moved to Spain five years ago, my Spanish was pretty decent, but far from where it is now. I had spent a few years doing once-a-week adult education Spanish classes. I learned a TON over my five years here, while I saw others who started more or less at the same level as me stay about the same.

In my opinion, I have no more "natural" facility for languages than anyone else. I'm not even completely sure such an ability exists. So, what was the difference? In my opinion, it was surrounding myself with Spanish people, being completely willing and even enthusiastic about making mistakes, and putting myself into uncomfortable positions that forced me to pick up specialized vocabulary. I always encourage others to correct me freely, and thank them when they do. In short, I failed my way to excellence... or at least competence.

By contrast, there are so, so many foreigners here-- particular English speakers-- who live within English-speaking bubbles that allow them to go about their everyday life without ever speaking a word of Spanish, shopping at English groceries, drinking and eating and English restaurants and pubs, patronizing only English-speaking doctors, etc. I always find it a little sad, as in my opinion they are missing out on the best parts of life here by choosing to create a gulf between themselves and the real culture of their adopted home.

I'll probably dig into Portuguese and maybe one other in the next few years just to try something new.

Totally agree with u/iamlindoro, if you go out and talk to people - badly at first! - and listen and watch in the local language you'll progress rapidly.

If like me you're an introvert that doesn't really mix much (with anyone, regardless of language), reads a bit and picks up the odd word... yeah you'll learn a bit but you won't be having in-depth conversations any time soon.

If you surround yourself with expats who don't speak the language, only read English sites and news, and just know 'yes' 'no' 'please' and 'thank you' you won't progress at all.

I can get by. If you want to integrate, go somewhere without a significant expat community, take lessons, and immerse yourself.

More than a year. It would help if I studied more than once a month lol.

Pretty decent progress with full immersion experience. Tend to increase vocabulary in spurts of practically. Buying a car - learned a lot of words for colors for example.

Key is to not be self conscious speaking and trying to communicate. People are very nice and you slowly pick up words you need to fill gaps.

For me, one week staying in Italy (immersion with friends, shops, wandering) was equal to a semester of college course non immersion. Classes are super important to get basics of verbs, vocab and syntax (how to put a sentence together). Without basics it IS more of a struggle.

It's completely dependent on how many hours you spend, not time, and also how complicated/similar the language is vs your own. You can look up the European skill grades A1 to C2. B2 is probably basic fluency but far from a native speaker.

If you want to speak a romance language, and you studied at home for say 30 min per day for 6 to 12 months to get a basic framework, you could hit B2 in three to six months if you used the language all day, every day. Using it one hour a day may take years to reach the same level.

Additionally, home study can only get you so far. You can drill and practice rules and words as much as you want, but dynamically understanding what someone is telling you and being able to quickly compile a response from your brain are very different skills.

There's a theory that you can only learn a language by receiving input at a level you can mostly understand, and over time that level naturally increases because your brain subconsciously deciphers the missing 10% of the input:

Here's an example of you understanding German with no proof experience: https://youtu.be/NiTsduRreug

A course in Spanish using this method: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlpPf-YgbU7GbOHc3siOGQ5KmVSngZucl

I live in San Diego, 20 miles from the border of Mexico. 5-10 years ago my parents wanted to move to San Diego to be near me and the beach. They don't have enough money to buy a house here. We looked at houses in Mexico, 20 miles from here. We looked at a couple condos in highrises (ocean views). At one, the current owner was present. She was about 80 years old. Lovely condo, the old lady was tapping away at her computer (from the AOL era). Chatted her up, asked how she liked the place. Said she loved it, she took a walk on the beach every morning and had lots of friends. Asked how long she'd lived there, she said she'd retired at 60 and moved in at 62, she'd been there 20 years. I asked if she knew Spanish when she moved in, she said she didn't know a word. I asked how long it'd taken her to pick up enough Spanish to get by and she said in 25 years she'd learned a few phrases but not really enough to get by, but she found every store spoke and restaurant spoke enough English for her to shop there and she really only hung out with Expat Americans who of course spoke English. I asked if not speaking the language had been a hinderance and she said not really.

I think in most places expats live, most people speak English. Me, I'd want to learn a little of the language to get by. Whatever you learn I think is mostly bonus.

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You can learn a language at any age but the older you are the less you're capable of pronouncing sounds your mouth isn't used to. So if you're still young(ish) maybe try and pronounce certain sounds from the language you want to learn to get your mouth/tongue/throat used to those movements if you care about your accent (accents can be charming in their own right however, provided they're not too thick)

1.5 years..introvert with partner in said language. Has been our daily language since.

It's less a function of "how long will it take" and more a function of "how much time and effort will I put into the language".

I'm now conversational in Spanish with natives. I studied in high school, but could never speak well or use it effectively, and I definitely couldn't understand native speech. The pandemic changed that; I found language exchange partners, improved my speaking, improved my listening immensely simply by listening to a LOT of native content that I didn't understand at first, improved my writing skills with daily practice...it was a lot of work, but it was worth it. I ranked as a B2 in the official placement test - I didn't even hit the C-levels except in my writing score. There's a long way to go. But I'm proud to say that I can actually use the language.

Feeling like an outsider in my opinion is more about your attitude to learning and having good friends who are native to wherever you want to live. My Spanish is passable and I sound good for a gringo, but to a native Mexican, Colombian, and especially Uruguayan, I'll always have a marked accent. That won't change, But I've learned culture and slang from friends from different countries, and that helps me to connect to them more. You'll never have the experience of growing up as a native in that country, but you can still make connections with people.

I hope to FIRE in Mexico, possibly Colombia.

Learning to read written French was not hard, really just a matter of putting in the effort. Learning to hear spoken French has been incredibly difficult. I am reminded of a game that I played when I was a kid where one person would read nonsense words off of a card to produce sounds that would have meaning if they were pronounced with a different stress or cadence. And one person has to guess the phrase while someone else has a card showing what it actually is. It's obvious if you know but impossible if you don't.

Spoken language depends so much on factors that aren't written down and people don't even realize that they're doing.

It takes 4 years to learn a completely unfamiliar language. Say learn Japanese for a native English speaker.

If you're learning a related language, it can be much shorter.

I'm not an expat yet but have been studying Spanish because I plan to FIRE to a Spanish-speaking country next year.

For my experience, mid 40s, I've been studying for 2 years in between normal adult responsibilities (which means sometimes only 5 minutes/day). That has put me where I'm able to hold simple small-talk sorts of conversations in addition to the necessities (get directions, order food, etc). I can also read pretty well in Spanish, including news articles and young adult novels - I just struggle with speaking.

I know once I move to the new country I will learn rapidly, but I like having the foundation to start from. I'll learn much more quickly since I already have a decent vocabulary, understand common sentence structures, and know how to conjugate standard verbs. Beyond that it mostly becomes practice, practice, practice.

I think this is really 2 questions or at least 2 levels.

There's fluency and there's 'getting around town' like being able to order food, interact with a store owner, ask for something, have basic conversations.

I'm in your age range and moved to Colombia almost 5 yrs ago. I would not call myself fluent but I'm getting good. That much time of immersion will do wonders for how fast you can learn.

It's been 2 years and still only have the bare minimum of Thai. I can order a few things and understand numbers but it's been a slog.

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Everybody's different. It's impossible to really answer this. I moved to Crete. I'm learning the language now. 2 classes a week, and I'm studying all the time. I'm 59.

As with anything - what you put IN to it will determine your outcomes.