To give you a general answer, though, if you’re strongly motivated, can time for daily study, and have basic study material available, you can probably reach a basic “survival fluency” in three to six months.

What Level do You Want to Reach?

If you’re self-taught or taking an average-speed (not intensive) language course, you’ll probably be able to reach Intermediate Mid or Elementary Proficiency in three months.

At this level you’ll be able to hold simple discussions on basic, everyday topics and get the gist of printed material meant for a wide audience. Buying something in a shop, ordering a meal in restaurant, checking into a hotel room will pose minimal problems.

The reality is, though, that if you have plenty of opportunity for interactive practice (ideally daily, face-to-face conversations), you can get a lot farther in that time.

There’s something about the way the human mind learns language that requires live interaction to really absorb a language quickly. We hear words repeated in context and hear examples of how to use various grammar features all while paying close attention to the person we’re talking to because we need to exchange information.

How You Can Get There in Three Months

Language teachers will tell you the average person can learn seven words a day without getting overwhelmed. You may be able to learn 20 words in one day, but try 20 words a day for a week and you probably won’t remember much of what you studied.

So, learn seven words a day for three months (minus one day a week for review) and you’ll have a vocabulary of around 550 words. In most situations, that will be around 90% of what you need to communicate comfortably.

Of course, it’s not all about vocabulary. You’ll also need a good grasp on the most common verb tenses, cases, prepositions, possessives and other grammar essentials. In three months, you probably won’t be able to get in enough practice to be able to use them flawlessly, but you can get comfortable enough with them that native speakers can understand with little trouble.

The trick to getting a good foundation in grammar relatively quickly is knowing when you move on to something new. For the most part, when you feel like you can use a particular grammar feature well enough to communicate (you make mistakes, but few that interfere with communication).

So, the answer to “How fast can I learn a language?” is that it depends a lot on your foreign language learning skills. If you have your tricks for getting vocab words to stick and learning to use grammar without having to stop and think about it, then you’ll learn significantly faster than average. The book Faster Foreign Language Learning provides just that. In contains all the “tricks” and “shortcuts” I’ve learned in the past 15 years of language learning and teaching.

The Whole Answer

No matter what your learning style, these tools can not only halve the time it takes you to reach conversation level (or fluency, if that’s your goal), but also make getting there more fun and less stressful.

Related posts:

1. Learn a Language Fast with Audio Courses
2. Three Things You Need to Learn a Language Fast
3. What if You Only Have Eight Weeks? Can You Learn a Language That Fast?