army1987 comments on Learn A New Language! - Less Wrong

3 [deleted] 20 May 2012 11:09PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 20 May 2012 06:58:36PM 1 point [-]

it takes about 10-20 years

If your goal is to speak the language with no substantial disadvantage compared to a native speaker, yeah, but learning to have basic conversations and to get the gist of written texts will often take one year or even less, especially if your language is not too different from the one you're learning (e.g. both are Standard Average European languages), and especially if you've learned additional languages before.