A beginner can learn English in a year. That's pretty fast, though not as fast as some of the crazy 15-day promises you see on the Internet. Specifically, a year is the average amount of time it will take for an adult to learn English fluently if they start as a beginner and study at least 5 hours a day. According to the census, 726,000 people in England and Wales said they couldn't speak English well, and another 138,000 said they didn't speak it at all.
If that sounds more like you and you can only dedicate a small amount of your day to studying (a couple of hours, more or less), you're more likely to be fluent in about a year. If someone works only with people of their own nationality, or if they don't meet English speakers at home, they won't learn quickly. Huan Japes, deputy executive director of English UK, a trade body for language schools, says that the general rule is 360 hours (120 hours for each of the three stages) to reach the level that the government expects applicants for benefits to reach. For example, if you're learning English and you keep making the same mistakes, or you have the same doubts every time you say a certain sentence, you're not making progress.
However, immigrants who arrive on a spousal visa are not eligible to receive free English classes for at least the first year. However, children learn faster to speak and listen, says Dot Powell, director of the British Council's ESOL Nexus. This is the best resource for intermediate English students to improve their communication skills quickly. If you're very focused and have a lot of free time to study, you can probably achieve fluency in about six months if you study about 5 hours a day.
George Osborne said in June, after the spending review, that welfare applicants who do not speak English will have their benefits reduced if they do not attend language courses. This will ensure that you make an informed decision and you'll know exactly what you're getting into when you decide to learn with Go Natural English. You want to be able to accelerate your learning and minimize the number of hours needed to study and learn English fluently. There's a big difference between an hour of concentrated study, where you're just immersed in learning English, and an hour of study where you're not quite sure what you're doing, what you should look at, or what materials you should use.
Even if you manage to study 5 hours a day, you still need time to process English, live with English, make it a habit, and feel comfortable using English as part of your life.
