How long did it take for you to learn all your languages?

In under a year, from zero? Not in my opinion. In theory, the U.S. military gets the best students at the Defense Language Institute to ILR 3 in a year to a year and a half (depending on language), which in theory is CEFR C1. Some do receive that rating from an oral proficiency interview, but most do not. There are, of course, potential questions in applying the ILR scale or the CEFR one, or in positing equivalencies.

Fwiw, I was the top student in my DLI cohort in Czech long ago, and I have discussed legal theory with a Czech Supreme Court Justice more recently. But at the time I graduated from DLI, my Czech was not yet at that level. DLI no longer teaches Czech, but I’ve seen the results in French (which I taught there). The students and teachers do amazing work, better than I’ve ever seen at any university. But there is a limit to what can be done in a year (although individuals vary, obviously).

/r/languagelearning Thread