How long does it take to learn a language? (Asian languages edition)

Every published answer to this question is an average for a particular kind of learner, usually a full-time one with a teacher and a salary. Your own number depends on three things: which languages you already have, where you live, and how much you are into language learning.

Kungfucius's short version for a learner with a European-language background: a solid B2 in an Asian language is reachable in one to two years of intense study. C1 to C2 is a different matter. Some people get there in two to four intense years, and many never do.

What the official estimates say

Nobody measures "learning a language". Institutions measure how long their own students take to reach their own target. Read the last column before the second.

Source	Figure	Target level	Who it applies to
US Foreign Service Institute (FSI)	88 weeks, about 2,200 class hours, for Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and Korean	Professional working proficiency (ILR 3)	Native English speakers, selected diplomats, full-time classes plus self-study
FSI	44 weeks, about 1,100 class hours, for Vietnamese and Thai. 36 weeks, about 900 hours, for Indonesian and Malay	Same	Same
UK Foreign Office (FOI response, 2017)	22 months of full-time training for Mandarin, roughly a year in the UK and the rest overseas	C1	British diplomats going to Chinese-speaking posts
US Defense Language Institute	64-week basic courses for Mandarin, Japanese and Korean	Working-level listening and reading, lower than the FSI target	Military linguists, full-time
Seoul National University Language Education Institute	6 levels of 200 class hours each, 10 weeks per level	End of level 6	Foreign students in Korea, 4 hours a day
Cambridge English	About 500 to 600 guided learning hours for B2, 700 to 800 for C1, 1,000 to 1,200 for C2	CEFR levels in English	Learners of English, mostly in classes

A few notes on reading this.

The FSI figures count class hours only. Students also study on their own, and for the hardest group part of the course normally takes place in the country. So 2,200 hours is a floor for a well-supported English speaker, not a promise.

The UK figure is the most useful single data point for ambitious learners: beginner to C1 Mandarin in under two years. In the same Foreign Office response, 68% of officers in Mandarin training had reached the target level by July 2017. Even paid, selected, full-time students do not all arrive on schedule.

The Korean university figure, from the SNU programme brochure, adds up to 1,200 class hours over 18 months if you take every term. Several other Korean universities use the same six-level, 200-hour format.

The Cambridge hours are for English. FSI gives its easiest languages for English speakers 600 to 750 class hours and the hardest about 2,200, so Kungfucius's rough rule for a European learner of Chinese, Japanese or Korean is to multiply classroom-style estimates for European languages by about three.

Hours for HSK, JLPT and TOPIK

The exam bodies are less helpful than you might hope. The current HSK level pages describe skills, not hours. The JLPT's official FAQ gives no study hours either, and Kungfucius has found no official hour figures for TOPIK.

Older official descriptions exist. The previous HSK guidance, still reproduced by Chinese universities, tied HSK 4 to about four semesters at two to four class hours a week, which is a light university course and says little about self-study. The JLPT's pre-2010 guidelines are widely quoted as assuming about 900 class hours for the top level. Private schools publish much higher numbers for learners who do not already know Chinese characters. Treat all of these as orientation only.

It depends on which languages you already have

All of the figures above assume a particular starting point, usually English. Change the starting point and the numbers move a lot.

• A European language only. You start Chinese, Japanese or Korean with almost no shared vocabulary and a new writing system. This is the learner the FSI's highest category describes.
• Chinese or Japanese already. Characters transfer. A reader of Chinese meets Japanese kanji with a large head start in meaning, and a Japanese speaker starting Chinese has the same advantage in reverse.
• Japanese or Korean already. The two share word order, particles and a large stock of Chinese-derived vocabulary, so the second goes noticeably faster than the first.
• Any second language at all. Someone who has already taken one foreign language to a high level knows how to study, tolerates not understanding, and wastes less time. The third language is quicker than the second for reasons that have nothing to do with grammar.

Using one language as a step to the next is called language laddering. The price of a close language pair is confusion between the two, covered under language interference.

It depends on where you live

Living where the language is spoken does not teach it to you. Plenty of foreigners spend ten years in an Asian capital with restaurant-level vocabulary and a very good English-speaking social circle.

What the country gives you is free repetition. Signs, announcements, shop talk and overheard arguments repeat the common words without any effort from you, and you get daily reasons to speak. The diplomats' programmes above build this in: the UK course moves overseas for its second half.

In Kungfucius's observation, the learners who reach B2 quickly nearly always combine the two: immersion plus disciplined home study. Classes or a tutor, daily reading and listening, a flashcard habit, and a life that forces them to use the language. Immersion without study plateaus early. Study without immersion works, but takes longer and needs deliberate substitutes, which the page on immersion goes through.

It depends on how much you are into language learning

Hours per day decide the calendar. At one hour a day, 2,200 hours is six years. At six hours a day it is one.

The well-documented fast learners were all in the second group. Steve Kaufmann, then a young Canadian diplomat, studied Mandarin full-time in Hong Kong in the late 1960s. By his own account he had three hours a day of one-to-one teaching, studied six to seven hours in total, spent at least an hour a day on characters, and passed the British Foreign Service exam after about ten months to a year.

Interest matters as much as discipline. The people who put in six hours a day for a year are rarely forcing themselves. They read about the language at breakfast and argue about romanisation systems for fun. If that is you, your timeline is short. If you would rather be doing almost anything else, no method will make it short, and a modest daily habit is the honest plan.

How long it takes to reach B2, C1 and C2

These are Kungfucius's estimates for a learner with a European-language background studying Chinese, Japanese or Korean. They are observations, not statistics.

Level	Intense study (4 hours or more a day, often in the country)	Part-time (about an hour a day)
Survival conversation, A2	3 to 6 months	1 to 2 years
B2	1 to 2 years	5 years or more, if at all
C1 to C2	2 to 4 years for some	Not reached by many, even after many years

The first two rows are mostly a question of hours. The last one is not. Many foreign learners live with the language for a decade or more and settle at a comfortable B2, because daily life stops demanding more. The ones who reach C1 or C2 in two to four years keep studying after they are already functional: they read books, write, get corrected, and take on work or study in the language. The UK diplomats' 22 months to C1 shows what that looks like with full support.

Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian and Malay sit lower on the FSI scale. For an English speaker, Indonesian and Malay are the quickest of the major Asian languages: Latin script, no tones, and forgiving grammar.

Asian languages are easier to learn than they used to be

Kungfucius says: Asian languages got way easier to learn in the last 10 to 15 years, thanks to easier travel, more language learning apps, AI and YouTube. Use it!

Most of the official estimates were built on classroom teaching from an earlier era. A learner today has pop-up dictionaries, graded reading apps, thousands of hours of video at every level, online tutors and an AI that will explain a sentence at two in the morning without sighing.

Some languages profit much less from this, because the resources do not exist yet. Taiwanese is the clearest case Kungfucius knows: few apps, not many YouTube channels for learners, and AI still struggles with it, in both text and speech. For a language like that, the older estimates still apply, and so do the older methods: a teacher, a textbook, and patient neighbours.

What to do with these numbers

1. Decide the level you need. "Fluent" is not a level. B1 for daily life and B2 for work are different projects.
2. Count your real weekly hours, including listening and reading, and divide the estimate for your level by that number. This is your calendar.
3. If the result is too long, change the hours or the target. Do not go looking for a faster method.
4. Check which of the three factors you can move: a helper language, a stay in the country, or simply more time per day.
5. Start with material you can follow. Comprehensible input is where most of the hours should go.