2nd Language Acquistion Time?

Question

I read somewhere that America is the only country in the world that believes it takes only about 2 Years to learn a Language, but It was on a German Language site so it might only mean that for German but is that True??? I'm not a Passive Learner Either.

Answer 1

It is easier for a Dutch or German child to learn English than a child from Japan or Korea because of the similarities in the German, Dutch and English languages.

For example, to learn German you will need (if you are an English speaker) :
Number of full-time weeks to achieve Professional Speaking and Reading ability
30 weeks [750 class hours (25 hours of class per week with 3-4 hours per day of directed self-study-)].
750 h. (class hours) + 4h. of self-study x 210 days (or 30 weeks) = 750 + (4 x 210)=

750h. + 840h. = 1590 hours.

"You can now compare these figures to the average number of class hours per year in a college language course. A typical college year is 9 months or 36 weeks. A typical language course is 3-5 hours a week, or 108-180 hours per year plus preparation outside of class. It's no wonder that students who start a foreign language from scratch in college, rarely achieve high levels of proficiency. Unless they have done significant language work in high school, they will need to supplement their program with intensive summer schools and study abroad in order to achieve a high level of speaking proficiency."

Answer 2

You mean two years of school lessons, or two years of speaking with natives, or...? I think you mean that American schools often require two years of a foreign language?
How long it takes for most people really depends on the context you're learning it in - for example you will learn much more quickly if you're exposed to the language all the time in a native setting. Also depends on how old you are - young kids learn new languages much faster than anyone older. Also probably depends on the language - Spanish or German would be easier to learn than Chinese or Russian, so they could be learned quicker. If you're not a passive learner, would practicing German with native speakers be a better way for you to learn? Hope that answers your question :)

Answer 3

I've known people that could learn another language in about 6 months, well enough to speak it when they needed it and get around in another country. I'm going to try to learn Danish this fall because I'm going to school in Denmark and they require you to know the language at some point in time. English IS very difficult to learn, but that's because we have so many words for everything and so many words that mean different things but are spelled the same. I'd say about a year to know a language very well.

Answer 4

I have never read statistics on people's beliefs on how long it takes to acquire a second language, but I certainly have seen some unreasonable beliefs here on Yahoo! Answers. I suppose that many Americans don't know how long it takes because they haven't done it. The amount of time it takes depends on how many hours you put in, what level you are trying to reach, how often you work to learn, the methodology used, and many other personal factors. However, many speakers of other languages who come to the States without previously learning English, for example, take several years to catch up to their age-group peers in school.

Answer 5

I lived in Germany for two years and at that time I had several Germans ask me where I was from? When I said the US, they asked me to speak English because they did not believe it. So, yes, it is possible. But. possibly rare.

However, Russian or Japanese would take longer. Russian for the grammar
and Japanese because it is so different, not Latin based, and reading requires the Chinese characters, katakana, and Hiragana. Three systems of writing in Japan, and of course, they do use Roman letters.

Answer 6

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