It is not a particularly attractive way to start an article.
I could have called this How long does it take to learn French? It would probably have been better for SEO. I could then have started, as almost everybody else does, with: It depends.
Instead, I am going to give you an answer.
Learning French takes years.
On what basis can I say that?
Our own framework.
For the past seven years, we have taught roughly 100 clients each week using a structured methodology that takes students from complete beginner through twelve successive books.
The figures below are therefore not universal truths about language learning. They are our figures: what we have observed through our curriculum, our tutors and our clients.
I could add considerably more caveats to make everything sound less affirmative, but you get the point.
There is, however, one important assumption: the starting point here is a complete beginner.
Roughly speaking, our curriculum is divided into three stages of proficiency.
Foundation
This corresponds to the first four books in our curriculum.
Students build the essential grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation needed to communicate independently in everyday situations.
Because we teach through annual programmes, I will use the same rhythm here.
These estimates assume consecutive learning, with no break longer than four weeks, and independent study between lessons: approximately one hour per week for students learning once a week and two hours for those learning twice a week.
Once a week: 2–3 years
Twice a week: 1–1.5 years
Confidence
This corresponds to books five to eight.
The language becomes increasingly natural and fluid. Students can participate comfortably in social and professional conversations with growing ease, range and accuracy.
Once a week: 5–6 years
Twice a week: 2.5–3 years
These figures are cumulative from complete beginner.
Mastery
This corresponds to books nine to twelve.
The focus shifts towards nuance, precision and cultural understanding, enabling confident communication in complex and demanding situations.
Once a week: 10+ years
Twice a week: 5+ years
Again, these figures are cumulative.
So, how long does it take?
Years.
That is probably not the answer most people searching for French lessons want to hear.
And commercially, I understand the problem.
Language learning is an industry in which ambitious promises are considerably easier to sell than realistic ones. Four months is more attractive than four years. Effortless is more attractive than demanding. Flexible is more attractive than committing to the same lesson every week.
We could make the same promises.
We could design intensive programmes around impressive short-term progress. We could talk about becoming fluent in a few months. We could make everything more flexible, more immediate and easier to buy.
We choose not to.
One reason is retention. Learning a great deal of French very quickly is not particularly useful if much of it disappears just as quickly. We are interested in what someone can still understand, recall and use years later.
But there is another reason.
I think people deserve to know what they are actually undertaking.
If you are starting French from zero and want to reach a genuinely high level, you are embarking on something substantial. There will be periods of rapid progress and periods when very little seems to happen. Some concepts will take weeks to understand and years to become instinctive.
That is part of learning a language.
There will always be a much larger market for someone promising to take a complete beginner to an advanced level in a few months, inexpensively and with very little inconvenience.
They may well be chosen over us most of the time.
We are comfortable with that.
We are interested in the smaller group of people who have stopped looking for the fastest possible way to learn French and have started looking for a serious one.
For them, saying that learning French takes years is not particularly discouraging.
It is simply useful to know before beginning.
