Time to learn a new language?

Question

Hello. I am currently a Sophomore in high school, and I was wondering, if I take Portuguese starting my JUNIOR year, by the time I graduate, will I be close to fluent, or fluent? Iknow some stuff in Portuguese, and I know Spanish which is kind of similar.So, what do you think? Are 2 school years enough to speak Portuguese fluently? By the way, I am a very good student, and I absorb information quickly. :-) Thanks

Answer 1

No, not fluently, but after 2 years you could take a trip to Portugal or Brazil and what you have learned should basically get you around.

Because it takes, on average, anywhere from 6 months to a year-long stay in the foreign country itself to become halfway decent with it, that's at a minimum and still doesn't address things such as the accent.

Meanwhile, taking a class at 1 hour / day for 5 days / week would be rather part time, I would think by the 4th or 5th year you would be getting to the pretty good part.

Hope this does not disappoint you, but there's a lot to learning a language and I felt you should know the truth.

Answer 2

No.
You cannot become fluent by classroom work alone. To become truly fluent you would have to live, think, speak, and breathe Portuguese.
You could spend your entire school life learning a language but, without actually talking and being around natives to use it frequently, there's no guarantee saying you would even be close to fluent then.