How Long Will It Take to Learn Portuguese?

Embarking on your Portuguese learning adventure? You’re likely wondering about the difficulty and timeframe involved. In simpler terms, how long will it take to converse in Portuguese with a good degree of fluency?

How difficult it is to learn a foreign language hinges on several factors. One key factor is your mother tongue and there’s good news for those who speak English unhindered.

According to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), Portuguese is – along with Spanish, Italian, and Dutch – one of the “easiest” languages to learn for native English speakers.

As to the question about the time it takes to learn Portuguese, the FSI gives an estimate of 24 weeks (roughly 6 months) for an English native speaker to reach the so-called “Professional Working Proficiency,” which roughly corresponds to the B2/C1 level according to the CEFR scale.

Now, I’d argue that this 24-week figure is too ambitious and misleading. We shouldn’t be talking about one-figure estimates! Since several factors will determine how fast you will reach your goal, it’d be more appropriate to refer to a time interval that can better capture all those nuances.

For starters, there’s your natural ability to learn languages – like it or not, there’s not much you can do about it. So, for my estimates, I assume you score average on this one as most of us do. (Having an average talent for language learning is also the assumption in FSI’s calculations.)

Then, there’s your prior linguistic experience. This one is relevant. When it comes to learning Portuguese, it helps a whole lot if you have studied another Romance language before, let alone if you are a native speaker of one of those. I am also assuming that you have no prior knowledge of Romance languages.

Lastly, there’s your commitment to learning and practicing Portuguese. How invested are you in learning this language? How much time a day will you devote to it? Will your practice be consistent over time? This is where your willpower and determination can shine and shorten the path to fluency.

It’s also here where FSI estimates might be unrealistic. For instance, the 24-week figure they advance presupposes 25 class hours per week (600 class hours in 6 months). I am sure that only a few of us would have all that free time to commit. 

So, let’s readdress the question: how long, realistically speaking, will it take for you to reach the B2/C1 level in Portuguese?

All things considered, you are most likely to spend between 1 and 2 years of consistent learning and practicing before you break into fluency. This is, of course, provided you are serious about it and show up daily. 

While it is not impossible to achieve fluency under the 1-year mark, I’d recommend you start your learning journey with realistic expectations so you don’t get disheartened along the way.

Again, remember that the FSI 24-week figure (6 months) mentioned before assumes that you are practicing Portuguese 25 hours a week on average. That’s over 3,5 hours a day, 7 days a week! How realistic would that be for you?

It’d already be excellent if you devoted 10 hours a week on average. If you managed to stick to that figure, and in keeping with FSI’s calculations, you’d reach your goal in 60 weeks (about 14 months’ worth of a learning journey). Excellent, I’d say.

If you only make it up to 8 hours a week on average – which is also very good and probably what most of us will be able to commit to – you’ll reach your goal in about 1.5 years. To me, that’s quite a feat.

To sum up. In this brief article, I discussed how long it might take for a native English speaker to reach the B2/C1 level in Portuguese (the fluency breakthrough level). I reckon that FSI’s estimate of 24 weeks (roughly 6 months) is unrealistic for most of us.

Here’s what I think is more plausible: 

Assuming that you don’t have prior knowledge of Romance languages, anything that falls between 1,5 and 2 years is very reasonable. Anything falling between 1 and 1,5 years is quite an achievement. Anything below the 1-year mark is, I’d say, outstanding.

Read also this: Key Strategies to Reach Fluency in Portuguese.