How long will it take me to become fluent in Spanish if I...
I have taken two years of Spanish in high school so far and my junior year is coming up and I will be in Spanish honors. I have recently started taking my spanish learning much more serious because I really want to be fluent. So if I... * Take an honors Spanish class 5 days a week for an hour * Watch only spanish movies and telenovelas at home * Listen to only spanish music * Have an in person language exchange partner (my neighbor)
...how long will it take me to speak and understand spanish fluently?
7 Answers
In my opinion, it depends on a lot of factors. Different people learn at different speeds. It sounds like you're passionate about learning the language which is really important. You're definitely on the right track with all the things that you're doing. It takes a lot of time, patience and determination to really learn a language. If you could find a way to be completely immersed in Spanish, like going to a language school in a Spanish-speaking country, I think you could learn to speak and understand with some degree of fluency fairly quickly especially with the things that you've already been doing.
It took me at least four years of being very involved with a Spanish-speaking immigrant community to regularly be able to be understood and understand when someone was speaking to me. Even then, it was often mind-boggling to listen to conversations between native Spanish-speakers and I was no where near fluent. Even after I got really good at speaking to and understanding my Mexican friends it was and sometimes is still difficult to communicate with people from other Spanish-speaking countries. I think it usually takes many years of consistent practice to become fluent to the degree that you're second language is as good as your first.
Basically, there's not really a clear cut answer to your question. Just keep at it and enjoy the process. Stay passionate about it and find ways to immerse yourself any way that you can. Perhaps volunteer to help teach a local ESL class...
The journey to complete fluency when you reach the stage when you can easily and comfortably communicate with native speakers of another language in their own language and one that is not your mother tongue (lengua materna) can be a long one. The most important thing is to be motivated to learn, which is obvious in your case, and enjoy the process without being overly concerned about how soon you are going to arrive at the destination! (Ie: achieve complete fluency) Being and staying motivated to keep practising your new new language is essential in order to persevere through the tough times when progress seems slow and you can feel tempted to pack it all in (give up)!
Having the support of a learning community like Spanishdict can also make the difference in persevering in your language skills!
There are degrees of fluency along the way and each time you make mistakes see them as an opportunity to learn from your mistakes and make real and evident progress!
Everybody is an individual and learns in a different way and at a different rate and there are many factors which can influence our progress in learning a new skill, and this is particularly true with regards to learning a second language, especially if we learn it as an adult! (Young children absorb and imitate /sdults usually want to analyse everything!)
This is why nobody can offer you a clear cut and definitive answer to how long it will take you or anybody else to achieve total fluency in any language including Spanish ...there are just too many variables which could affect the outcome! 
The factors that influence a person's progress in learning to speak and making progress in learning a (new) language are these:
1.Exposure to the language! Immersion is critical!The ideal way, would be to live in a country where the natives speak the target language you are wanting to learn to speak fluently! This way, you can imitate and pick up the idioms and learn to speak it using the colloquial speech and natural expressions modelled by the natives who live around you. You will be hearing it spoken on a daily basis! You could also combine this with taking an intensive Spanish course at a recognized, local language school run by native speakers! Not everybody will.be able to do this...our lifestyles opportunities and financial resources and committments will limit some of us from fulfilling such a dream!
2.Your prefered learning style and pace at which you learn! The more you practice, the faster your rate of progress is likely to be!
3.Any natural gifting you have for learning languages! If you have a musical ear this can help you when learning a new language. (I play the piano by ear and have done since I was at least 4 years old. I have find it very helpful, especially when learning Spanish French and Italian)
Finally, we make progress one step at a time..The journey may seem incredibly long but we always have to take the first step....it won't happen by itself!
An old chinese proverb says: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step!
= Un viaje de un mil millas comienza de solo un paso.
I hope this helps 
Corrijan mi español si es necesario, por favor
When I first began studying Spanish seriously I remember asking this same question, and now that I have several years experience behind me, I would suggest that you might want to change your goal from fluency to making progress day by day. Fluency is a journey, and there isn't a moment when hits critical mass when you've suddenly achieved it. Different skills will come at different rates. Sometimes speaking skills lag behind listening skills...sometimes it's the other way around. Certain "pat" conversations may click into place while more technical or nuanced conversations can take a long, long time. I think that alba was absolutely correct that the fastest way to progress is through full immersion in a Spanish-speaking country. There are several excellent schools (I have attended CPI in Heredia, Costa Rica and absolutely loved it.) You can also volunteer (depending on your skillset) for construction or medical or other projects that serve folks in Spanish-speaking countries.
Studying is great, but unless you practice speaking and listening on a regular basis your progress will probably be slower than you want. But alba's advice is really excellent....enjoy the process and your hard work and dedication will pay off. I can promise you that it is a journey worth taking.
Five weeks, two days, four hours and twenty six minutes.
As has already been said, I think immersion is the key. I take myself off over to Spain a few times a year and just hang around the bars etc, striking up conversations with whoever will entertain me lol. I generally go to non tourist areas where little or no English is spoken. It is then sink or swim time. When people realise that you are keen to learn the language they are generally really helpful. When I return from a 3 week trip to Spain my head is packed full of the language. I learn more in those 3 weeks than I do in 6 months of reading on-line articles. I try to go every 3 or 4 months so that I don't lose the impetus.
I am nowhere near fluent, but I can now hold a decent conversation on a variety of subjects. I still make a lot of errors but I can see light at the end of the tunnel now
One word: immersion.
I studied English for 8 years. Only became really fluent after moving to the US.
Cuánto tiempo me tomará llegar a ser fluido adentro Español Si me
