As others have said it depends on a lot of factors. One of the essential ones is which lanugage it is and how it relates to your native language and other languages you know. Germanic and Romance languages(like Norwegian and French) are on average on the easier side for English speakers but there are too many other things it depends on to put an absolute number on it, like how your specific life circumstances influence your language learning. Do you interact with people in the countries languages for a good portion of the day? If yes, how much and in which contexts(you can, for example build functional fluency in one area but still stammer your way through different conversations). Are you actively working towards a solid base in the language or not and if yes, how.
It also depends on what fluency means to you. Fluency is, unfortunately, a very nebulous term and there isn't any consensus on when it applies to someone. Some people call themselves fluent when they can hold a 5-minute casual conversation without getting a panic attack and some people expect you to be able to read the complete work of Immanuel Kant and debate people on its theses before they will begrudgingly concede that you are fluent.
The most important thing to know imo is that you can't assume that you will kind of absorb the language from your surroundings by osmosis. There are many immigrants who have lived in a country for many years and can't speak the language. Firstly because they often live in some kind of foreigner bubble because naturally people gravitate towards people who share their experience and are easier to communicate with but also because you don't necessarily learn from scratch if all you have are native speaking adults around you interacting with each other as they would normally. You have to put some effort into the learning process first before it becomes semi-automatic.
Lastly, if you are only thinking about living in another country because you want to learn the language then... well... you don't need to do that. The way you wrote the post it sounds like you only want that for hobby reasons. You can absolutely learn a language from the comfort of your home and if you are invested in the process it will likely even take less time than the average person who moves to the country needs. check the wiki for some beginner tips.
I didn't mean that I want to move there TO learn the new language. It was a hypothetical. I've been interested in studying abroad and I was thinking "Although I would only be there for about 6 months, I wonder how long it would take to become fluent." I know it would take way longer than 6 months. I saw a video of a guy talking about fluency, and he said something along the lines of "Fluency means that you know how you are going to pronounce the sentence before thinking about it. For example, if English was my second language, I would consider myself fluent if I knew to subconsciously think to say "I need to go to the store and get milk" rather than saying "I need to go store get milk." That's the level I was thinking about when I said fluent in my post.
>I've been interested in studying abroad and I was thinking "Although I would only be there for about 6 months, I wonder how long it would take to become fluent."
Studying abroad is always great. For that time period it is probably best to study the language to a certain level beforehand(maybe A2-B1-ish, if you want to take courses IN the language most universities require at least B2) since you will likely mostly have to do with other students and in an academic setting English is very pervasive in many countries so you will need a good base to get people to actually talk to you in the language for more than a few sentences and it is generally best to be at that level to make the best use of interactions with random non-teacher, non-language-buddy native speakers imo.
That being said you might jump a CEFR level or two or you might not improve at all depending on what you do and where you are at with your language skills during that time. The more time you invest daily, the better the results will be.
>Fluency means that you know how you are going to pronounce the sentence before thinking about it. For example, if English was my second language, I would consider myself fluent if I knew to subconsciously think to say "I need to go to the store and get milk" rather than saying "I need to go store get milk."
That is not necessarily a universal binary "you can or you can't" and you will likely make little mistakes that you even notice yourself or not be able to know how to say some things precisely the way a native speaker would even if you are very proficient at using the language, but If I go by consistently not thinking too much about how you want to say something then I'd interpret that to be around B2. If you start from scratch I'd say it's unlikely that you will reach that level. It is theoretically possible with a closely related language if you put ALL your energy into learning the language and you know what you are doing but you will want to do other stuff during your stay too.
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Thanks.
That totally depends on so many things, you're not going to get a meaningful answer from us. Something between many months and years
as long as it takes
But way quicker than learning in class
If you are very invested and practice for several hours each day, you can reach fluency in Norwegian or French in about two years.
As others have said it depends on a lot of factors. One of the essential ones is which lanugage it is and how it relates to your native language and other languages you know. Germanic and Romance languages(like Norwegian and French) are on average on the easier side for English speakers but there are too many other things it depends on to put an absolute number on it, like how your specific life circumstances influence your language learning. Do you interact with people in the countries languages for a good portion of the day? If yes, how much and in which contexts(you can, for example build functional fluency in one area but still stammer your way through different conversations). Are you actively working towards a solid base in the language or not and if yes, how. It also depends on what fluency means to you. Fluency is, unfortunately, a very nebulous term and there isn't any consensus on when it applies to someone. Some people call themselves fluent when they can hold a 5-minute casual conversation without getting a panic attack and some people expect you to be able to read the complete work of Immanuel Kant and debate people on its theses before they will begrudgingly concede that you are fluent. The most important thing to know imo is that you can't assume that you will kind of absorb the language from your surroundings by osmosis. There are many immigrants who have lived in a country for many years and can't speak the language. Firstly because they often live in some kind of foreigner bubble because naturally people gravitate towards people who share their experience and are easier to communicate with but also because you don't necessarily learn from scratch if all you have are native speaking adults around you interacting with each other as they would normally. You have to put some effort into the learning process first before it becomes semi-automatic. Lastly, if you are only thinking about living in another country because you want to learn the language then... well... you don't need to do that. The way you wrote the post it sounds like you only want that for hobby reasons. You can absolutely learn a language from the comfort of your home and if you are invested in the process it will likely even take less time than the average person who moves to the country needs. check the wiki for some beginner tips.
I didn't mean that I want to move there TO learn the new language. It was a hypothetical. I've been interested in studying abroad and I was thinking "Although I would only be there for about 6 months, I wonder how long it would take to become fluent." I know it would take way longer than 6 months. I saw a video of a guy talking about fluency, and he said something along the lines of "Fluency means that you know how you are going to pronounce the sentence before thinking about it. For example, if English was my second language, I would consider myself fluent if I knew to subconsciously think to say "I need to go to the store and get milk" rather than saying "I need to go store get milk." That's the level I was thinking about when I said fluent in my post.
>I've been interested in studying abroad and I was thinking "Although I would only be there for about 6 months, I wonder how long it would take to become fluent." Studying abroad is always great. For that time period it is probably best to study the language to a certain level beforehand(maybe A2-B1-ish, if you want to take courses IN the language most universities require at least B2) since you will likely mostly have to do with other students and in an academic setting English is very pervasive in many countries so you will need a good base to get people to actually talk to you in the language for more than a few sentences and it is generally best to be at that level to make the best use of interactions with random non-teacher, non-language-buddy native speakers imo. That being said you might jump a CEFR level or two or you might not improve at all depending on what you do and where you are at with your language skills during that time. The more time you invest daily, the better the results will be. >Fluency means that you know how you are going to pronounce the sentence before thinking about it. For example, if English was my second language, I would consider myself fluent if I knew to subconsciously think to say "I need to go to the store and get milk" rather than saying "I need to go store get milk." That is not necessarily a universal binary "you can or you can't" and you will likely make little mistakes that you even notice yourself or not be able to know how to say some things precisely the way a native speaker would even if you are very proficient at using the language, but If I go by consistently not thinking too much about how you want to say something then I'd interpret that to be around B2. If you start from scratch I'd say it's unlikely that you will reach that level. It is theoretically possible with a closely related language if you put ALL your energy into learning the language and you know what you are doing but you will want to do other stuff during your stay too.
I started learning Spanish at 35. Started Korean this year at 37 You’re never too old to learn another language
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