How many hours a day should I study English? Research by the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI) found revealing data on how many hours a day you need to study English to become fluent.

According to the study, a person must dedicate 480 hours to a language to reach basic fluency. It also showed that those who are able to study this language for 10 hours a day will achieve the goal in only 48 days.

Of course, studying 10 hours a day requires physical and mental effort, as well as an enormous dedication that not everyone can have. So it would be enough to do some calculations to know how many hours a day we should study.

For example, if the student dedicates four hours a day to English, he/she will be able to speak English with basic fluency in four months if he/she dedicates 4 hours a day to it. On the other hand, if you study it 2 hours a day, the goal will be reached in 8 months.

But that’s if we’re talking about basic fluency. Another study, developed by the Swiss Federal Council, states that individuals can communicate in English at an advanced level once they complete 1,000 hours of study.

That means that if someone studies 3 hours a day, every day, he or she will most likely end up speaking at an advanced level in just one year.

According to science, how many hours a day should I study English?

But now let’s review what science recommends about how many hours we should study English per day, regardless of how much time we are in a hurry to achieve our goals.

There is really no consensus on the number of hours a day we should dedicate to studying a language. Some say 4 hours is ideal, and others say 6.

But in many cases, that number of hours can be excessive and impair attention levels.

That’s why learning experts at the University of Utah believe it’s best to develop a time schedule based on students’ actual possibilities, so they don’t start thinking about other activities they should or want to do while they’re taking classes.

According to this latest work, what will really matter is that the number of hours scheduled for each day is always met.

A different view on how many hours a day to study English

Cal Newport, a university lecturer and expert in learning methods, says that the number of hours is not important in any case, but that the lessons are completed in a simple and effective way.

For Newport, this is not achieved by following a textbook or guidebook method to the letter, but by teaching the classes in a simple and somewhat improvised way. In other words, the teacher must master the chapter so well that he/she can explain it to anyone in his/her own words.

And what is the best time to learn English?

A study by representatives of several U.S. universities, done in 2016, showed that taking classes in the evenings, and in the mornings, increases the ability to remember what is learned.

Moreover, the study says that the really ideal is to take a class in the evening, and then one in the morning, or at any rate with sleep in between the two lessons, since it is precisely sleep that multiplies the chances of retention.

At Lingua Language Center, we have English programs with different intensities with respect to the number of hours per day. Either way, we focus on results, so we guarantee significant progress in every case. Contact us today to reserve your place and start learning English as soon as possible.