Hi everyone, it's Ariel here. Today I want to share with you an episode from the Level Up English podcast from Michael Lavers.
I think this is going to be a really useful episode for you all. It's answering the question, how long does it take to get fluent in English, which is I'm sure a question many of you have asked before.
So, listen, enjoy, and if you want to hear more of the Level Up English podcast, you can find it on your favourite podcast app or go to levelupenglish.school-podcast.
Enjoy!
Welcome to the Level Up English podcast. The best place to come to practice the English language, learn about the British accent and culture. With me, your host, Michael Lavers.
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Level Up English podcast. My name is Michael and today we're talking all about fluency and how long it takes until we reach that level of fluency.
I will give you a hint as to my answer right now at the beginning, which is it's not an easy thing to answer. In fact, if you have this question, you may be disappointed by my answer, but I'm also going to try to make it a little bit motivating as well.
And I think if you listen to what I have to say today, you will end up feeling more excited, more motivated and more positive about learning English. So, if you do have this question, stick with me until the end and I know you're going to feel better by the end, by then.
But before we get to that, I just want to remind people if I'm talking too quickly, if I am using words that you may not know, maybe the transcripts will be helpful for you. I do sometimes get people telling me, I talk too fast, I disagree.
I mean, I'm talking at a speed which I think is natural for me. I try not to talk too slowly or too fast, it's just my natural speed. I do try to enunciate, talk clearly like I am right now.
But I don't think it's fair. Well, maybe it's fair, but at least for my podcast, I want to give you natural English listening practice.
So I don't think it would be a good idea for me to give you really slow English. I'm going to challenge you with my natural speed.
If you think it is too fast, that's fine. It's maybe just not your level yet. I think a great way to work on that skill and improve your listening is to make use of my transcripts.
So these are live subtitles that as I'm speaking, it will highlight the word in the transcript. They're really, really smart how it works and it's so, so helpful as well.
If there's a word you want to find, you can also use the search feature, you can search for any of these words I'm using in the episode.
It really, really is very helpful. And if that is interesting for you, that is just one of the many, many things available at level up English members.
So if it sounds good, you can go to levelupenglish.school and click on that members button at the top of the page.
Or, easier, click the link in your podcast description that says transcripts. If you are still kind of questioning the membership, whether it's right for you or not, I also invite you to sign up with your email for free and get five free lessons from level up English.
And if you want to do that, that is again in the podcast show notes on your device. So there should be a button there that says free email lessons.
Click on that and get a preview of some of the things we have on the website.
But okay, well, let's get started. So I get this question a lot. The question of how long until I get fluent in English or how long until I master English, how long until I can speak English.
And I get variations of this question. I would say on a weekly basis. It's a fairly common thing that I get. So my goal for this episode is to answer the question and provide a resource for the future.
So next time someone asks me, I will just send them this episode and they can listen to my thoughts without me having to type an essay every time.
So if you're listening to this because I sent you the link, then hope this helps.
I think there are many factors to this question though. So first of all, if you're learning for a general purpose, what I mean by general is you're learning because you want to get better for any reason really for self interest for fun.
For travel, for future study, you just want to get better at English. If it's a general reason like this, there is no such thing as 100% in language learning.
It's not possible to reach the end of a language. And the best evidence I have for that is that native speakers are still learning too. I am not the best English speaker.
Like being a native speaker, you will find many people who are more eloquent and well spoken than me. I can't even think of the right word now. Articulate. I think that's the word I meant to say more articulate than me.
If you articulate your using all the right words in all the right places, you're really good vocabulary. I am not a very articulate person, although I do try, but I learn new things in English all the time.
Language is a really, really huge. You can never get to the end. So that's one thing to keep in mind. When you say fluency, what do you mean? What does being fluent mean? It's not so easy to say.
Just to give you another example, I have taught students before who in some ways were better than me. I think there's a difference between a native speaker knowledge and a learner knowledge.
Native speakers tend to find it easier to use these casual expressions and phrases. Native speakers might find it easier to guess the meaning of a new phrase. If you said something I've never heard before, I might be able to guess it more easily than a learner.
However, one thing I've noticed is learners try much, much harder to master English. And of course, because of that, many English learners are more passionate about English than a native speaker.
So I've met students who seem to have a much wider vocabulary than me, which is quite intimidating, but I'm not afraid to admit that, because these are people who've been studying for many decades. They use all these big words. And every now and then I would have to go, ooh, what does that word mean?
Maybe they were wrong, maybe they made a mistake, look it up in dictionary. Nope, it's actually a really good word. I just didn't know. So, you know, it happens, it happens.
Let's say, though, you're asking me, how can I be fluent in English? I say, well, how do you get fluent? What does fluent mean? Doesn't really make sense. It's not possible to finish English.
But that maybe you get more specific. So you say, okay, I want to define fluency as conversing comfortably in the language. How long until I can use English comfortably with anyone?
That is a little bit more specific. So it's better than just the word fluency, because at least I know your goal. I know what you're aiming for.
However, again, it's still quite vague. Vague means not specific. It can be understood, interpreted in many different ways. It's really, really not easy to be specific in language learning, because it's such a gradual, slow process.
It may take a few years. If you want to reach that level of comfortable conversation, let's make it more specific and imagine you're going into the pub in England, in London, and you want to chat with the person next to you.
So, hey, how's it going? How do you get into a talk about politics, the environment, places to visit in London, normal stuff that you might discuss with a friend?
To get to that level, it could take a few years. I also think though that students often reach this level before they realize it. So they ask when they will be fluent, despite asking in a really natural and fluent way.
Sometimes people will say, I've just been studying English for so long and I'm having such troubles getting fluent and I just cannot get my point across the people.
And then I say, wait, did you realize that when you're talking to me right now, you are talking very naturally, I didn't hear a single mistake, I understood your point completely. Did you realize that?
And then they go, oh, yeah, I guess, I guess you're right. So this is another point I want to make is, as learners, we often don't realize how far we've come because naturally we only look at the things we have left to do.
We don't often look back at what we've done, you know, when you're walking up a mountain, you are mostly looking ahead at how far you have to go. You don't spend much time looking behind at how far you've come.
But I think we should do that more. We should look at how far we've come and realize we're probably much better in the language than we know than we realize.
So, yeah, you might be there already. Have a think about your goals and have a think about what you can do. If you can understand me talking now at my natural speed, then you have already come so far, you can understand a native level conversation with fairly some advanced words and mistakes as well.
I'm making some mistakes, I'm slipping up on my words and you're still able to catch that. Maybe. So well done if you can do that.
It also depends on many factors though. So I said a minute ago that it might take a few years, but on the other hand, it does depend on many things. So the person is one big factor.
We all have different minds. We learn at different paces. We have different natural abilities. I do agree and I do believe that anyone can learn a language, maybe 99.9% of people.
Maybe there are people who cannot would be with some serious disabilities or something like that, but I think almost everyone can learn a language. But of course there are differences in natural abilities.
Some people will naturally have a better focus. Be more outgoing or maybe a better mind for learning. But it doesn't mean you cannot learn everyone can learn.
But because of these differences, it will take some people longer than others. Honestly, I believe that I am not a natural language learner.
I think my strength lies in consistency and unwillingness to give up.
So if I say that I'm going to do something, I will do it every single day. As of today, I have studied languages for almost 900 days without a break.
It's a bit crazy, isn't it? And I don't think I'm a good language learner. I take a long time to learn a language. However, I do it every single day without fail.
And I think that is my strength. So we all have different strengths. For me, it might be a bit longer, for you, it might be faster.
It also depends on how much you study. Of course, if you study 10 minutes a day, you're going to progress slower than one hour a day. That should be obvious.
But another thing that we often don't think about is the efficiency of your study. So it's, I would argue, is better to have a 30 minute conversation every day than one hour of flashcards.
I think a conversation would be more helpful for most people. It would be better to do 10 minutes of reading in one day rather than one hour of looking things up in a dictionary.
That's what I believe, but it may depend on the person. So think about the efficiency of your study too, not just the time. It's not just the quantity, it's the quality. Quantity means amount time.
And the final thing it could depend on is how focused you are. If you're constantly looking on your phone, looking on Reddit, like I do, while you're studying, you're going to learn more slowly.
If you are 100% focused on the studies, not anything else, you will learn more efficiently and faster.
So that is some of the reasons or those are some of the reasons why I cannot give a clear answer on how long it will take.
Okay, I know also some of you may have seen on a video. I've got a plaster on my finger. I did a blood test this morning. That's why if anyone's wondering.
I think now is the important part of the episode today because when people ask me this question, I want to say you're asking the wrong question.
Let's not even ask it to begin with. I suggest avoiding this mindset completely. Don't even think about how long it's going to take.
Because if you focus on words such as when or how long you will never enjoy the journey.
Think of going on a road trip when you were younger. Maybe you're going to holiday or something like that. I've got memories of traveling to visit family or going on a holiday to France.
We would always drive to France and it would take many, many hours, which is a long time for a little kid, little boy.
And I would go, are we there yet? How long until we get there? How about now? Are we there yet?
I would be moaning like that the entire way. And of course it was a horrible journey and I was so focused on getting there. It made it much worse.
If I could give advice to younger Mooney Michael, I might say try to enjoy the journey. Try to relax.
Play some games of your brother, read a book, play with your teddy bears in the back, whatever. And you'll have much more fun.
I hope that makes sense like comparison. But I think it's the same with language learning. If you do not enjoy the process of learning, you'll also probably learn slower as well.
I think when you enjoy something, you learn more efficiently, you learn more easily, all these kind of things.
So if you focus on enjoying the process of learning every day, you're happy to study, you made your study routine fun.
You are going to be hopefully learning much faster and you just have a good time. So let's say that isn't true. Let's say you do not learn any faster.
Whether you enjoy it or not, it's the same speed. But then why not just enjoy it anyway. You're going to be working hard on your English, on your language.
Even if it doesn't take faster, even if it's not shorter, you may as well have fun. You may as well enjoy it. And the reason is because with any journey, a physical journey, a learning journey, with any journey, the process of learning is always longer in time than the destination.
So you will be learning English for many, many years. The process of learning will take many years. However, the achievement of having learnt something is very brief.
Let's go back to the mountain climbing analogy again. Climbing a mountain might take, let's just say six hours.
Reaching the top of the mountain might be less than 30 minutes. You might spend 30 minutes on the top. Depends how cold it is, right?
Reaching the top is an amazing feeling. But if you look at your whole day, most of your day was climbing to the top.
So it makes sense that you don't just put all your happiness on the achievement at the top of the mountain. You want to enjoy the whole journey. And then you'll look back on that day and you will feel good that you had a really happy, enjoyable time.
So make sure you're enjoying the journey as well because the journey ends up being most of your life. Whether that's learning language, learning something else, reaching your career goals. Life is a journey.
If you do not enjoy the journey, you will be miserable right up until you feel like you might have got success. But do we ever get success? Do we really ever reach a point where we can finish? That isn't really how life works. Is it?
As soon as we reach that success, we want something more. There's always something more to get.
So focus on enjoying the longer one because that is your life. Focus on the journey, not the destination. That's a common phrase. If you cannot enjoy your language level now, you will not enjoy it in five or 10 years.
So people often think myself included I always feel this way and I have to tell myself not to but people think, my language isn't good enough. I really want to get better at English. Imagine if I was an advanced fluent speaker. I would be so happy. I feel so good.
But that's not true. I'm here to tell you today that is not true. If you're not happy with your current level, you will not be happy when you are advanced right you won't be happy then either.
It's about being happy where you are. Yet still wanting more.
Being happy doesn't mean you give up of course. It just means you can appreciate how far you've come and you want to keep going because you enjoy it and you want to keep the happiness going I guess right.
So yeah, I hope that is useful to hear. I know many of us know that already but it's a good reminder I think.
Let me just finally now tackle a more obvious expectation and this is exam students. I know some of you saying, well Michael, I've got an exam. I'm doing my IELTS exam or something.
I can get to 100% easily in an exam maybe not easily.
But this is maybe an exception for general learning you cannot complete a language. If you have a really specific goal like passing an exam or getting a job interview done, you can kind of get 100% you can complete your goal in the language.
This is more specific but it's still difficult to say because depending on the exam, you will need different times to study a different length of time.
But of course the more the better it still varies a lot from person to person. It depends on the person. So in my exam lessons, people ask me how long until I finish how long until I can be done with your lessons.
It's still not easy to say I would say give it. I maybe 20 lessons is good for some people depending on what they want to cover.
But it depends how much you're going to work, how hard are you going to do between lessons on the homework and all this kind of stuff. It still varies a lot.
But for example, if you are doing the IELTS exam, I think they recommend preparing for a few months. Don't just start two weeks before.
I recommend six months, I kind of have a long time but I've said this before. If you break down the parts of the exam, the exam questions, there's so much to cover.
And six months sounds like a long time, but let's say you study twice a week in six months. I'm not going to do the maths because I'm not going to embarrass myself with bad maths.
But it's not that many times, twice a week, six months, it's not so long. For the Cambridge exam, I think Cambridge recommends what they say it should be 200 hours for each level.
So if you say if you passed your B1 exam, you need to put in 200 hours to reach your B2 level exam.
So that's 200 days, one hour a day. It might be one year if you miss some days.
But personally, I would never say something so specific. They do say on the website it varies from person to person is really hard to say, but I guess it's a rough guide 200 hours to go up a higher level.
But yeah, I don't like it again because if I said to you, you will get to the advanced level in 200 hours.
If you don't reach it, you're going to feel so bad like, I'm not good enough. What did I do wrong? And I know that because I felt that way too. I would hear people saying you can master Japanese in six years.
And I've been studying for over 10 years and I haven't mastered Japanese.
So I used to feel really bad about that until I realized what I'm saying today, how we're all different. I haven't put in as much time as some people.
Lots of stuff like that is many factors. But okay, there's my breath at the end of my long, long rant, my long talk.
Let's end with one podcast review. And I've got a quote today which I really love. So stick around for this quote in a second.
The review here is from Jihad Alaskari from Saudi Arabia, who says thank you very much for outstanding episodes.
So thank you, Jihad. That's very nice of you for the review.
I also want to mention on Friday, I've got a really exciting episode coming up. So on the public podcast here, I never ever say naughty words.
For a few reasons, one, I don't want the episode to be, I don't want the podcast to be affected with an explicit rating. I don't want to have the views and downloads effect on the episode because it does make a difference.
Also, I wanted to be a family friendly show. I don't want to be saying bad words in front of children who might be listening, you know.
And the final reason is because I don't swear that often. I don't say naughty words that often in my normal life. It's just not natural for me. I wasn't brought up doing that.
However, on Friday's private episode, I will be covering all of these naughty words because it is the private episode is much more casual.
I don't really care about the views on the episode. You know, people can view it if they're members. So I'm going to be sharing some useful English phrases using swear words for the first ever time on level up English.
I'm already feeling a little bit anxious about it.
But if you want to hear that lesson, it's going to be hopefully funny, but also really useful because these are words that people use every day, even if you don't use them, it's important to understand them, I think.
So anyway, that will be available for members at level up English. Again, tap on the link in the description if you want to find out more.
But anyway, let's get to the quote. This is, if you can't be happy with a coffee, you won't be happy with a yacht.
Yacht is a type of boat, by the way.
I love this quote. It just means if you cannot be happy with something simple, you will not be happy when you get something better.
Let's make it more suitable for language learners. If you can't be happy as a beginner, you won't be happy advanced.
Do you agree? I agree.
Well, thank you for listening or watching. If you're on YouTube, I appreciate it.
Hope you have a great week and I'll see you next time.
Goodbye, everyone. See you later.
You have been listening to the Level Up English podcast. If you would like to leave a question to be answered on a future episode, then please go to levelupenglish.school.
forward slash podcast. That's levelupenglish.school.slajpodcast.
And I'll answer your question on a future episode. Thanks for listening.
