#447 - How Long Does it Take to Get Fluent in English? — My Experience and How to Reach Your English Fluency Faster (Than Me)
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Aw yeah! In today's lesson, we are answering the question once and for all: how long does it take to get fluent in English? So stick around until the end because you will get an expert hacker's visually based technique that'll make learning and remembering vocabulary effortless.

And Izzy shares exactly how long it took him to get to a native level and the three keys that'll help you to get there much faster than he did. And you'll discover how just one TV series can teach you more than you ever learned in school. So let's jump right into episode 447 of the RealLife English Podcast.

Aww yeah Global Citizen, this is Ethan from RealLife English where every single week it is our mission to take you beyond the classroom to speak English confidently and naturally, to connect to the world, and to actually use your English as the doorway to living your greatest life. Aww yeah Izzy, so we are going to be digging into your story because people hear how impressive it is that you sound just like a native and they're probably asking themselves

Maybe first thought is like, man, I want to speak like that. And then they're asking themselves, how long did it take you? So we're going to dive deep into some things that you did and how long it took you and answering the question about how long it takes to speak English at the same level as you do. But I thought we could kick it off with a little bit of wisdom from someone that both of us admire a lot, who I don't know if you knew probably do as a language learner, Tim Ferriss. Really? Yeah.

I didn't know that. Like what language is he learning or has he learned? He speaks fluent Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, and I think he's dabbled in other languages.

Nice. What does that mean? To dabble in something? If you dabble in something, it's like you're not an expert in it, but you're sort of an amateur or a hobbyist. So you like that thing. You might learn a little bit about it, but you wouldn't call yourself a professional by any means. Yeah, I hear it a lot. Like with sports, for example, like somebody says, oh, you play instruments. Like, oh, you play guitar. I dabble.

Mm-hmm. It's like good, humble brag, I guess. All right, so let's see what Tim Ferriss has to say about learning languages fast.

If you approach it the right way, you can actually learn hundreds of words per day if you wanted to make that effectively your full-time job. If you want to make it just a part-time gig, you can still learn 10 to 100 words per day if you really make an effort of it. And if you do that, you don't have to learn 100,000 words. To be functionally, conversationally fluent in a given language, meaning you can hold a long conversation, you really only need about 2,000 words. What I would say though is that

this is best illustrated by example. So rather than rote, i.e. the repetition of this in

English is this in Spanish, this in English is this in Spanish, and just hoping that that is going to gain a foothold in your mind. Let's just say "cao" and "vaca", V-A-C-A. Alright, so vaca is "cal", vaca, vaca, cal, etc. How would you remember this? We are highly visually adapted. We are evolved to be very visually acute and

We are driven that way and our memory is highly tagged and cued by any type of imagery. So what I would suggest in such a case is that you use something that has been nicknamed the link word mnemonic. There are other ways to label it. Really all this entails is creating a link between the words that is image based. So if we have a word like vacca,

And I would encourage you when you're first learning vocab to the extent possible not to fixate on the spelling because it can throw you off. Vaca, vaca, what does that sound like? Vacuum, maybe. Alright, so what could you imagine? Let's imagine that there is a cow and it has a really oddly shaped head that looks like the end of a vacuum and it's sucking up the grass on the ground. Alright? So it's a cow with a head like a vacuum sucking up grass.

cow, vacuum, vaca. All right. That would be a very simple example. So, so interesting. Like association is like a, the way we associate sounds and words in our minds. Sometimes it's just completely weird and it doesn't have to make sense, right? You just need to remember. And our producer Chi was saying it might be good since you and I are big fans of Tim Ferriss, but maybe some of you haven't heard of him. He is, he's kind of claimed to fame. He has many, but he's,

His main claim to fame, I believe, is that he's really good at hacking processes, which basically means that he takes things that are complex and he finds more simple, faster ways to do it. So language learning is one thing that he has found a lot of shortcuts for. So he has like an entire article on this that I've read in the past. It's really interesting.

And like you said, he gives some really great tips there already. Before we talk about that, there were a few nice pieces of vocabulary that he used. So he said that, you know, maybe you could be like a full time language learner or you could treat it like a part time gig. What is that a part time gig? So when you're talking about working, like having a job, it can be full time, meaning usually like 40 hours in most countries, I'd say.

Or it could be part-time, which is less than that, usually like 20, 25 hours. And a gig is another word for a job. But sometimes, like, let's say in the context of music, like playing live, like each show that you get to play at a bar, you could call that a gig, right? But that could be used for all types of jobs. Like if you're a painter and you're going to paint a house, somebody hires you, that's a gig for you. Yeah, I think the difference is kind of like where it's a one-off thing.

thing rather than being something that you have a contract and you know you you have to show up every day and do the same hours and he mentioned uh getting a foothold in your mind like having book how to get a foothold so maybe i'll describe that since i've gotten into rock climbing the last couple years and that just came to my mind yeah i was gonna ask you yeah yeah you have kind of like handhold and footholds when you're doing indoor climbing that's a good way to think about it is like something that helps you to get traction so you don't fall off the wall in the case of rock climbing

uh and he's using it obviously metaphorically here so like using it like a hook sort of i also heard him use a collocation there like a functionally fluent it's kind of related to what we're discussing today but what does that mean to be functionally fluent because you can use that with other words too like functionally something else right so what does that mean here functional is like working right so i think it's like saying a working fluency in other words it's not the same as mastery like you know

almost everything there is to know about that language or you're at a native level, but it's like you have another really nice collocation or phrasal verb, I guess that we can use is to get by. So like I would say with French, for example, I have enough French to get by. Like if I go to France, I can kind of do basic things there, but I can't have survive. Like, yeah, exactly. I can survive, but I can't have like a long,

fluent conversation or talk about philosophy or anything like that that I would be more comfortable doing in English or Catalan or Spanish or Portuguese and he mentioned to just the last thing rote learning and

So I think that's a nice term in the realm that we're talking about. I'm not sure what that means. Can you, maybe I do like in some other context, but what does that mean? Or it's co-located a lot with like rote memorization. So it's the thing where you're kind of just like trying to put your head down and like memorize a vocabulary list. For example, that would be rote memorization where you're, it's almost like this semi-aggressive

for me, at least in my head, it's like a semi-aggressive thing where you're like trying to like shove in the words into your brain or something, which really isn't very effective. But that's how most, how language teaching is,

It's taught in most schools. It's just like this rote memorization of vocabulary lists and grammar rules and so on. Hey, y'all, let me take a brief moment here to ask you a question. Why are you not on the real life app yet? You should be watching this lesson over there. It's so much better. And if you want to become a confident natural English speaker, if that's your goal, I have three very strong reasons why you should at least give it a try. Because first of all, these lessons are...

long, right? They're relatively long, like 30 minutes, some of them reaching 40 minutes. And some days you may not have all the time to go through everything at once. Now, what if you could watch them part by part? What if you gave you chapters and micro lessons to learn from? And even better than that, what if we gave you a way to practice all these words, all the advanced expressions they learn here so you can master them, remember them forever and use them in your own English conversations?

Well, this is exactly what you can do on the app. And there's a bonus. At the end of the lessons, we always do a dedicated part, a special segment for our app learners. So go ahead and click the link in the description below to unlock this lesson for free if it's your first one. And I'll see you inside.

And the technique that he shared, I wanted to ask you, have you ever tried anything like that in your own language learning? Well, I have even in Portuguese, my native language. Sometimes I want to remember a name and associate it with funny sounds or something that sounds similar. And in English,

I bet that I have too, but I can't remember right now a word where I use that, but I do use it in languages in general, right? So I would say yes, but it's not my key strategy or I don't use that as a strategy actually. So people came here, they're itching to know, how long does it take to learn a language? How long does it take to learn English specifically, Izzy? All right. So if you're watching this lesson, for all of you guys watching, listening, I'd have to say...

A year or less, right? To become fluent. If you're not fluent yet, or if you feel like, oh man, like there's a lot in between me right now and becoming, like speaking naturally, confidently. But if you're listening to this and if you can understand us here, I'll tell you there's not so much in between you and your fluency goal there. So a year tops if you do it right, right? That's also important. Which is fantastic.

what we'll be talking more about. Because it's a loaded question, right? Like how long does it take to learn English? It depends on many different factors.

So you mentioned people watching this, obviously like one factor is what level are you at currently? So people watching this probably have like functional fluency, like Tim Ferriss said, or you probably have maybe a intermediate to upper intermediate level. Yeah, because the answer is generally it depends, right? We always hear that like, oh, it depends, but we don't want to hear that, right? Like we want the direct answer. And this is the direct answer because I know who I'm talking to, right? A bit here based on the fact that we are speaking English right now. So there you go.

It could be less though. So that's good news, I guess, for you. Yeah. So how long did it take you to get fluent? Like starting from scratch? Right. So starting from scratch. What does that mean, by the way? If you start from scratch, it means you start without anything. So for example, oftentimes if you bake a cake, you have two options. You can buy like the box in the store that I think you just have to add like a little bit of water and an egg too. And

and then whack it in a pan and then whack it in the oven. And voila, you have a cake or you can start from scratch. So you have to get all the ingredients. You have to get the flour and the sugar and the eggs and the cocoa powder or whatever. And, you know, follow the instructions, mix it all together in the right order, and then you can put it in the oven. Right. Uh,

So starting from scratch with the language means you're starting from zero pretty much. So yes, I was starting from zero and also starting without any guidance. So it took me four years, but it took me at least two to figure out a process or a way that I would say, ah, you know, this works. And before that, before those two years, which was right in the middle, I would say that it was more passive and I was just not intentionally...

Like thinking like, oh, I want to learn English. I liked it. I knew that I was learning, but I only became like an active project somewhere in the middle there. And still though, like I was, I guess the expression figure out, the phrase of word figure out, it matters here. Because it was not just me learning the language. It was me learning the process, which eventually led me here too. Like here speaking with you and working alongside with you. Because we teach using the real life way.

It's what we call our method for learning English. And it's based on the success stories of most learners, if not all people who speak English fluently today. And I can see myself in that method too, in the framework, right? So...

It took me a long time to figure that out too. But it was great because now I have the confidence to teach it. Yeah, it's nice that you brought up the real-life way because it's the difference of starting from scratch. You said that you had to figure it all out on your own as you went. And the real-life way, we're kind of like giving you the cake mix so that you're saving a bunch of time and effort and brain power. You don't have to figure it out yourself.

But you said four years. So I'm wondering, like, how did you know? How did you know, like, okay, now I'm fluent. All right, let me answer that question. But before, let me just compliment with something here that I'm saying, why am I saying that you can do this in one year when it took me four? It's because when I was at your level, probably, then it took me one year, right? That's what I'm saying. Like, at the point that I could understand already, like a podcast like this, for example, like a lesson like this.

Then at that point, it took me a year, which was between like a 2011, 2012 and 2013. And because you had like the knowledge that the techniques and so on that we're going to be talking about today. Exactly. You've taken three years to figure that out on your own, but you guys are getting a shortcut today. Okay. So you asked me how long it took me and how did I know, right? It's a good question because it can be quite elusive, right? This idea of fluency. Like, what is that? I mean, one person may call fluency.

Fluency, as Tim Ferriss was saying, like a functionally fluent, maybe to them that's fluent already. You don't even need to use the word functionally there. To others, it might be like mastery, right? So I asked that question to you first, like what is fluency to you before I tell you what it meant or how I knew for me. I was going to quickly ask you, as you said that it's elusive. What does that mean if something's elusive before I answer your question?

Right, so like something you're trying to catch and you never get to, or you're trying to find, and whenever it seems like you're finding it, it's not there, for example, right? It's like the movie Catch Me If You Can. Yeah. That guy was really elusive. I think that...

For me, if I'm speaking for myself, there's different levels of fluency. So I don't fluency is like this one point. It's not the top of a mountain that you get there. And it's like, now I'm fluent before I wasn't. And like, now I'm fluent. I think there's degrees of it. And I think there's what Tim Ferriss was talking about that. I think he said 2000 words, which really isn't that many. You can already have kind of like this conversational fluency or like the ability to, um,

go to a bar and sit down and have like a cafe and have just like a casual conversation with someone. But maybe you're not at the point where you can talk about, I mentioned earlier, like you can talk about philosophy, have like a philosophical conversation with someone, which you need to get to a more advanced level. You need more obscure vocabulary or expressions and so on to be able to get your point across well, right? So it depends a lot too on what your goals are, right?

like for me i mentioned for french okay i can get by for me right now at least that's more than enough for me but i don't know right now i'm more focused on my portuguese because it's like something that i want to be able to have these deeper level conversations since i have like brazilian friends here and i travel quite often to brazil so i think too that's important right it's starting with why like asking yourself what do i need it for and that'll tell you first of all

what level will be enough for you already? And that will inform too how long it'll take you to get there. But what would you say? How would you define fluency? Yeah, okay. So I think how I view it kind of adds to what you're saying because for me, it's about how I felt as far as confidence. Like I felt that there was a point that I reached that I really wanted to use my English, that I just wanted to speak because I had the baggage, I had the information I needed. And also...

I felt like I had so much to say, but where was the opportunity? So when you're already missing the opportunities, I think that's a good sign. Now, it's not all you need because when you get there, you will need to prove it and to validate your English and your fluency. But it's already a good sign. Now, if you are fearing because words don't come out naturally, for example, if you feel like you're still translating your head wrong,

then that means you're, I would say you're not fluent, regardless of the situation. Even in situations where you just want to be functionally fluent, if you're translating your head in that situation, I wouldn't say you were fluent there, right? Like ordering a coffee. Okay, great. But can you order a coffee without translating your head? Are those words already automatic to you? And I can tell you how to get there too, but even like functionally fluent like that, but

I would say that's my definition of fluency, just like not translating your head and feeling like you want to use your English. That's perfect too, because fluency, it literally comes from fluid, which it's like flowing. It's like a river flows, right? So it's this thing that you want the language for you to be like water that it's able just to

same way that like water to it goes around obstructions right i think that that's a big indicator that you've reached fluency is that when you don't have a word you don't know exactly how to say what you want to say you can get around the barrier you can find a different way to describe what you want to say and then probably the person you're talking to at least if they're native they can say oh you mean this and then you'll have learned the word but i think that it's like when you get to that point you know you're unstoppable because anything any barrier that comes up

you know that you can get around it by describing it in a different way, by paraphrasing. One expression that came to my mind, Izzy, for this too, is you were saying that you like really got motivated, like you really wanted to use your English when you got to that level, is this expression, if you've got it, flaunt it. I don't know if you've heard that expression before. Flaunt it is like showing it, showing off in a way. Mm-hmm.

Like if you flaunt, yeah, flaunting it is like showing off, but it's usually used in this expression. If you've got it, flaunt it. And it basically means that, that it's used a lot too, like in a way that when, if you, you know, someone's got physical attributes, like natural physical attributes that people tend to find attractive, it's kind of like show off those physical attributes. But I thought of it here. It's like once you're English native.

gets to a certain level, maybe you want to flaunt it a bit. Before we talk about how to, the actual method, what I did and what one can do to kind of speed up the process too and learn from my mistakes because... One year instead of three years, right? Right, exactly. Before we talk about that, I just think it would be nice to illustrate what I'm talking about here with the excitement to speak and just like looking for the opportunity that when I was, I think...

19, 20, I don't know the age, but around that time when I was already sort of fluent, I knew I was fluent, but I wasn't sure because I hadn't validated it yet. I went to my mom and I asked her, hey, do you know anyone who teaches English or works somewhere where they teach English? And she knew a teacher. So she got me his contact information and I called them and scheduled a conversation, a meeting. And this guy was very nice and

He works at a language school at a English school here in Brazil, a very large one. And when I got there, he immediately started speaking English with me because he knew that what I want to talk about, which was like opportunities and different paths, possibilities, career advice. But he was also a Brazilian, right? But he was also Brazilian. And the best thing that he could do is like immediately broke that awkward wall of like we.

We have the same native tongue, but let's speak English anyway. Yeah, because I guess he didn't want to go through the part of the conversation where we'd be kind of evaluating my English. He immediately just started from English. Dived in. Yeah. And then for me, that was great. But then it was that first test that I felt like I passed because as soon as I realized like, oh, we're doing this.

Oh, let's do it. Let's do it. And then... Like trial by fire. Exactly. A trial by fire. What is that in this context? Yeah, that's like where you basically need to do something in a painful way to prove yourself. So another way we could say that is like throwing you in the deep end. Like if someone's learning to swim, rather than having them like start in the shallow place where they can touch and they feel more comfortable, you could have this more intense...

uh, method or approach to it where you just take them to the deep end and you throw them right in and sink or swim. And that was one of my first times speaking English, like in general, I would say, although like having a full conversation, you know, and after that, I think things picked up speed really quickly because I had a job interview to work at this language school and it was all in English as well. And then from there I started teaching and

and having full conversations and classes in English. But before that, there was just a few opportunities, I would say, that I actually found to have a conversation with a real person. Now, I shared in other lessons what I did alone, right, to practice my English. And I guess we can link those in the description and show notes as well. But now let's talk about how that even happened. Like, how do you get fluent in

By practicing by yourself or practicing with the opportunities that you can get in your journey. That's what we've been hinting at, right? Is like actually giving people what did you figure out in the first three years that allowed you then in one year to reach this confident level of fluency. So let's say these are keys. Let's call it three keys for speeding up your fluency journey.

I'm just branding it right now. So the, but this is, this is kind of related to the real life way, right? The first one is to figure out your input game. The second one is to activate your English. And the third one is to pursue projects in English that you connect with. So the first thing that I realized is that input is key, right?

All right, guys. Now, if you want to watch the rest of this lesson, including this part where Ethan and I talk about the three keys to speed up your English fluency journey, just click the link in the description below because that will take you straight to the real life app where you can watch this lesson in its entirety and all of our other lessons, the full version of them. So click the link below or search for RealLife English on your favorite app store and I'll see you there.