How Many Hours A Day Should You Dedicate To Language Learning?

Asking how many hours a day you should be learning a language is an understandable question to ask, but the reality is that it is a hard question to answer.

I will go through a few things you need to consider to work this out as everyone is going to be slightly different.

However, if you really wanted an answer from me, I think you need to be doing at least 3 or 4 hours a day, I think as a bare minimum you need to be doing an hour, but really it all comes down to the more you can do, the better.  

The More You Study, The Faster You Will See Results

When it comes to learning a language the formula for success is pretty easy, it simply boils down to the more time that is spent with the language …the better the results.

You will need to put a lot of time in, hundreds, if not thousands of hours, but really the more you can do, the better you will get.

You will also find that the quicker you do this, the quicker you will see results.

Let’s say we both want to put 500 hours into learning a language, that is a large amount and we should see some results after that. However, how we go about this could be very different, if you do 10 hours a week, which may seem like a good amount …but then what if I do 10 hours a day, every day.

I am going to reach that 500 hours a lot quicker and I will get my results a lot quicker too.   

You need to factor this in when you are thinking about how many hours a day you should study for. You will always get there in the end, but if you want to speed up the process, you simply need to study more every day. 

(You can read more about – How To Learn A Language Quickly)

How Many Hours Can You Commit To Learning A Language?

If you are asking how many hours a day you should be studying, then you are coming at it with the wrong approach.

Really should be asking “How much can I do”

You know how much free time you have and you need to decide how much of that you want to dedicate to your language learning.

What happens if you have 4 hours free every night, but I tell you that you should be doing just 1 hour.  Are you just going to do that and then sit there for the next 3 hours not studying? … I hope not, as that would be very silly.

As I’ve already explained, the more time you can put in, the sooner you will see the results, so you need to ask yourself what can you actually do.

You Can Be Flexible With Your Time

I also think asking how many hours you should be doing a day isn’t a great question, as you can be flexible with things and you don’t have to do the exact same amount every day.

I guess it’s good to have a rough target so you know you are at least doing enough, but the reality is that life can get in the way and there may also be days where you might just want to do less and rest.

Then of course there is the opposite where you have the whole day free and you also have a lot of motivation to study a lot.

I always try and aim for at least an hour, but that would be my bare minimum. I normally get about 3 or 4 hours in, and then on some days I may go well beyond this.

I would always say that it is better that you just do what you can every day. There will be peaks and troughs, but so long as you are trying to do as much as possible then you have the right attitude and you will make progress. 

(You can read more about – Why Should You Spread Out Your Language Learning Throughout The Day?)

How Much You Study Depends On What Your Goals Are

It is also sensible to consider your goals before you decide how much you should be studying every day.

Chances are you want to get very good at the language and reach fluency, but do you want that as soon as possible because you are moving to the country soon, or are you happy to take your time and get there in a few years as you are just doing this all for fun.

The more urgency you have, the more you need to study.

What Kind Of Studying Are You Spending Your Time On?

The time you spend studying a language is meaningless if you are not studying properly.

A lot of people will say they have done 3 hours, but if you actually looked at what they did during that time, it was maybe half an hour’s work at most.

It can be very easy to get distracted and waste your own time, so be aware of this. Make sure you are actually focused on what you are doing. This problem can also be due to what you are doing, different kinds of study will burn you out a lot faster than others and trying to treat them equally is wrong.

If you look at learning vocabulary, you can only do this for a short period of time. You are very quickly going to learn a number of new words and then anything after this is just going to be a struggle. You will get tired and overloaded and basically reach your limit.

If you are saying “I am going to learn vocabulary for the next hour” …you probably won’t be spending that whole hour learning and you will reach your limit long before that, so you are wasting your time.

For something like this, you are better off measuring it differently. Tell yourself you will learn 15 new words and then just take however long that takes. If it takes 15 minutes, cool …if it takes 1 hour and 15 minutes, so be it. At least you will have spent that entire time trying to reach a goal.

Likewise, if you look at immersing, you can measure this in time, it is not as mentally draining so you can just sit there for as long as you want and do it.

I am a big fan of immersion, so when I am saying I’m studying for 3 or 4 hours a day, most of that is made up of immersion. I probably spend about 30 minutes learning vocabulary though Anki, then I just watch a lot of videos in my target language. To me, that is “studying” even if it doesn’t feel like it.

(You can read more about – What Is The Optimum Amount Of Language Immersion?)

You Will Reach A Limit Of How Much You Can Study In A Day

I have kind of touched on this with the above point, but the reality is that you will reach a limit of how much you can physically study every day.

We all have 24 hours a day, but no one can study for that entire time. You need to rest and you need to live the rest of your life, but even if you could dedicate your whole day to studying, your brain will still reach a limit.

You will probably notice this early on, as most people tend to get excited and do massive study sessions. You will notice that at some point it just feels like your brain gets full and then stops working. You will reach a point where you can no longer take in any new information and studying after this is pointless.

You will need to play around with things and work out when this happens, but you also need to remember that this will change as you progress.

When you first start studying everything is new and overwhelming and you will reach language fatigue extremely quickly, even within 10 minutes, but as you get more comfortable you will be able to study for longer and longer and actually be able to study for a few hours.

You can compare it to running. If you have never run before you might get about 30 seconds down the road before you are dying. So long as you keep practicing you can build this up and over time you will be able to run a whole marathon.

When you are starting out in the language you just need to do as much as you can. Everything you do is helping you get stronger and then you will reach a point where you can actually say that you want to study for X amount of time.

You Probably Need To Spend More Time Studying Than What Is Recommended

When it actually comes to how long you should be studying for, it is probably going to be a lot longer than you think.

I see so many apps saying that you just need to study for about 10 minutes a day. This is fine, you can spend that 10 minutes on that app …but don’t stop there.

If you are just doing that, you will go nowhere. Their recommendations are nowhere near enough to see results. As I said at the start, the more time you put in, the quicker you will see results and 10 minutes a day is not a lot of time, so don’t expect to see results.

The reality is that you need to be measuring your study in hours per day, not minutes. The more hours you can put in every day, the better.

Do your little 10 minute lesson, and then spend a few hours learning vocabulary and immersing in the language as much as you can. Doing this is going give you significant progress that the app alone cannot give you.

Conclusion

Hopefully know you can understand that just asking how much you should be doing is not the right approach. You need to look at what you are doing and then try and do as much of that as possible.

This may change from day to day, but so long as you are putting in as much effort as you can, then you will see results.