How long will it take me to learn English?

We get asked this question all the time at PALS, and quite honestly there is no clear-cut answer.

First things first, every learner is different. The rate at which you learn is different, the amount of time and practice each individual puts in varies and everyone's memory or capacity to remember new information is distinct. 

Couple that with the fact that motivation can play a key role in language learning and you can see how difficult it is to answer the question dead on.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

• School can only provide you with about 30% of the learning; the rest is up to you at home. How much homework will you get done? How many hours will you dedicate to studying? Are you listening to English music, watching English television, reading English books and talking to people in English?

• Immersion. Immersing yourself in the language and culture of your target language (being English) is super important. Use what you learn at school as often as possible. A real-life situation is sometimes the best way to force yourself to start speaking. Become friends with someone who doesn't speak anything other than English. Now try to communicate with that person... it might seem hard at first, but communication will naturally develop between the two of you and you'll be speaking in no time!

English is one of the easiest languages to learn; hardest to master. Now, don't quote me on this, but I would stand by this statement pretty firmly if I had to. If you want to speak English with the motivation of having a conversation with other English speakers, then I think it would be safe to estimate about 3 months of full immersion to get you to your goal. However, if your goal is a little more academically or professionally driven, then understanding others and being understood by others will not suffice. You will want to be able to read, write and understand all the subtle nuances of the language (fully loaded with idioms, expressions and much more). This can take anywhere from 6 months + (keeping in mind that these are averages).

The best way to find out how long it will take you to learn English, is to sign up for a class and start learning! I can guarantee you one thing for certain: you can only improve!!!

How long did it take you to learn English? Leave a comment and share your story with us :)