„How long does it take to learn German?“ is the question every English speaker asks before starting and every course provider answers with a number that sounds good. The honest answer has two parts: it depends what you mean by „learn“, and it depends on hours, not months. This article gives you the numbers that exist, from the two institutions that have measured them, and then does the arithmetic for a realistic daily routine, including 17 minutes a day.
What „learning German“ means: the six CEFR levels
Europe measures language ability on a scale from A1 to C2, the Common European Framework of Reference. For practical purposes:
- A1: You can introduce yourself, order food, ask where the station is and understand the answer if it is slow. Survival German.
- A2: You can handle shopping, appointments, simple forms and a short conversation about your job and family. Daily life stops being a guessing game. This is the level the German spouse visa requires.
- B1: You can follow a conversation among Germans on a familiar topic, describe a problem to a landlord and read a simple newspaper article. This is the level for German citizenship and for most vocational training.
- B2: You can work in German, argue a point and understand most of a film. Universities and many employers ask for B2.
- C1 and C2: Academic and near-native. Most learners who live in Germany reach C1 eventually; C2 is rare and optional.
When people say „learn German“, they usually mean B1 or B2. When course adverts say „learn German in three months“, they usually mean A1.
The FSI number: German is category II for English speakers
The US Foreign Service Institute has trained diplomats in languages for decades and ranks them by how long an English speaker needs to reach professional working proficiency, roughly B2 to C1. Languages closely related to English, such as Dutch, French, Spanish and Italian, are category I, around 24 to 30 weeks of full-time study. German sits in a category of its own, category II, at around 36 weeks or 900 classroom hours, plus homework. Older versions of the same list quoted 750 hours.
Two things follow from this. First, German is measurably harder than French or Spanish for an English speaker, but only slightly; it is nowhere near the 2,200 hours the FSI allows for Japanese or Arabic. Second, the extra time is not spent on vocabulary, where English speakers have the advantage, but on cases, gender and word order. The shared words make reading German easier than reading French; the grammar makes speaking it harder.
The Goethe-Institut numbers: hours per level
The Goethe-Institut, which runs the official German exams, gives guideline figures for the number of teaching hours needed to reach each level. They are ranges, because learners differ, but they are the best published estimate:
| Level | Cumulative hours (approx.) | What that buys you |
|---|---|---|
| A1 | 80 to 200 | survival phrases, introductions |
| A2 | 200 to 350 | daily life, simple conversations |
| B1 | 350 to 650 | independent user, citizenship level |
| B2 | 600 to 800 | working in German |
These are guided hours, which means a class or a structured course, with study time on top. Learners who live in Germany reach each level with fewer formal hours, because the hours of listening in shops and offices count too. Learners who study abroad with no contact to German need the upper end of each range.
The arithmetic for 17 minutes a day
Now the useful part. Take the course we describe on our page Learn German with an English interface: 17 minutes a day, and the provider states about 21 hours of total learning time for the beginner’s course, which covers A1 and A2 with 1,300 words.
21 hours at 17 minutes a day is 74 days. Roughly two and a half months to work through the material, which is why the provider talks about three months. That is faster than the Goethe range for A2, and the difference is explained by what each number measures: the course counts the time in the app, the Goethe figure counts classroom hours with the slack of a classroom. Both are honest. A course that repeats each word at the right moment is more efficient per minute than a class of fifteen people, but it does not replace the hours of listening to real Germans.
So the realistic version for A2 in three months is: 17 minutes of course a day, plus German radio while you cook, plus a few sentences a day with a real person. Around 30 to 40 minutes of contact with German a day, for 90 days. We have laid out how to spend those days in How to start learning German from zero: a realistic 90-day plan.
From A2 to B2: where the hours really go
Here the numbers stop flattering anybody. Going from A2 to B2 needs roughly 400 additional hours by the Goethe estimate, and 17 minutes a day is about 100 hours a year. At that pace alone, B2 is four years away. Nobody wants to read that, so here is what actually happens to people who reach B2 in one to two years:
- They move to a German-speaking country, or they have a German partner, and their daily contact with German goes from 17 minutes to several hours, most of it passive.
- They keep the structured course going, because passive listening alone does not fix grammar, and the intermediate course (B1/B2) gives the cases and the subjunctive a structure.
- They read. Bilingual stories first, then children’s books, then the news. Reading is the cheapest way to add hours, and English speakers read German better than they hear it.
The rule of thumb that survives contact with real learners: one hour of German a day, in any mix, gets an English speaker to B1 in about a year and to B2 in about two. Seventeen minutes a day gets you to A2 in three months and keeps you moving after that, but it is the floor, not the ceiling.
Say it like this
Ich lerne seit einem Jahr Deutsch. – I have been learning German for a year.
Ich bin auf Niveau A2. – I am at level A2. (Germans say the level as „A zwei“)
Ich verstehe mehr, als ich sprechen kann. – I understand more than I can say. (the sentence every learner needs)
Wie lange hat das bei dir gedauert? – How long did it take you?
Three things that change the number more than talent
Daily contact beats weekly effort. The same 100 hours spread over a year in 17-minute pieces produces more than 100 hours in ten weekend workshops, because memory works by repetition at intervals. Every serious study of vocabulary learning says so, and every long-term memory method is built on it.
Listening from day one. English speakers who study only from text arrive in Germany at B1 on paper and A1 in the bakery. Hours of listening, even without understanding, train the ear to segment German speech, and that cannot be caught up later in a hurry.
Speaking badly, early. The learners who reach B2 fastest are the ones who spoke at A1 with the verb in the wrong place and did not mind. Every correction from a German is a free lesson.
Frequently asked questions
Can I learn German in 3 months?
To A1, yes, with daily practice. To A2, yes if you live in a German-speaking country or add listening and speaking to a daily course. B1 or B2 in three months is not realistic for an English speaker starting from zero; those levels need several hundred hours.
Is German harder than Spanish for English speakers?
Slightly. The FSI puts Spanish in category I and German in category II, a difference of a few months of full-time study. German vocabulary is easier for English speakers; German grammar, with cases and gender, is harder.
How many hours a day should I study German?
Seventeen to twenty minutes of structured learning every day is the minimum that produces steady progress. One hour a day of mixed contact, including listening and reading, gets an English speaker to B1 in about a year.
Start the 21 hours today
The German beginner’s course with an English interface covers A1 and A2 in about 21 hours of learning time, 17 minutes a day, with the intermediate course, the business course and the C1/C2 vocabulary included in the complete package. Two days free, one-off payment, 31-day money-back guarantee.
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