How many hours a day do I need to learn Spanish online?
How many hours a day do I need to learn Spanish online? Many people from all over the world are trying to answer this inquiry. Its answer can be a challenge even for language professionals who teach Spanish every single day, however, we’ll try to expose our point of view about this topic in the following article.
With more than 500 million speakers as mother tongue or as a second language and also surpassing the 20 million learners, Spanish is without a doubt one of the most relevant languages around the world, becoming subject of interest for many people that want to be able to speak fluently as a way to open doors academically, culturally and also for entertainment and traveling. Due to this impact, there is a great offer respecting academic programs, schools, and institutes where people interested in learning Spanish can take classes, along with great demand.
The thing is, many of these learning centers tend to make promises that are exaggerated, misleading, or simply a complete lie, respecting the time that must be invested to learn Spanish and with some of these claims being: “Learn Spanish fluently in a week” or “With this magic method you will learn Spanish in one month” etc.
Needless to say that such statements are merely marketing strategies and probably work for that purpose, but in real life to achieve such goal is more complicated than that. So, how many hours a day do I need to learn Spanish online? Let´s see how you can find out.
Answering the Million Dollar Question Respecting Spanish Learning
There is no easy answer regarding a specific time that somebody would say it is the period a student needs to learn Spanish. This is because of a simple reason; everyone is not the same.
Every student is a person who has different skills, age, background, motivation, and follow methods to learn that might work great or simply fine on them at the moment of studying the language.
Sure, there are some studies that throw actual results and figures that answer this question. For instance, there is the U.S. Foreign Service Institute Timeline study that came with the result that for a person between 30 to 40 years, it will take from 580 to 600 hours of their life to learn and acquire fluency in a language, including Spanish.
The study was carried out over 24 weeks during the number of hours previously mentioned, with 25 hours per week and three hours added as personal time to study for every student. However, here is the catch: the FSI study involved stationary classrooms and not surpassing 6 students per class.
While the study results can be considered a guideline, figures must be carefully taken into account since there were aspects that were not considered that are important at the moment of learning a language and Spanish: time the student is investing to learn, approach, personal skills, age and currently very influential online teaching methods, clarifying that quality is better than quantity.
Aspects to Consider When Learning Spanish or Any Language
Learning Spanish or any language is a complex process where there are different aspects to consider. Nevertheless, these are not usually taking into account by teaching institutions or online language schools, where the main interest seems to give a bunch of hours to the students and get them as many classes as they can.
So, we insist for the last time on the same question, How many hours a day do I need to learn Spanish online?
We have come to the conclusion that the time a student spends to learn Spanish or any language is influenced in different ways by these factors:
- Background
The background is a very important aspect at the moment of learning a new language, being the exposition or lack thereof for that matter of the student to the Spanish language. In many cases, students of all ages have taken at least one Spanish class in their lifetime, whether in middle school, high school, or college.
There is also the exposition to the language in movies, songs, and culture in general from Spain or Latin America. If the student had any of the aforementioned, there is a great chance that studying Spanish gets a little bit easier by recognizing sounds, grammar aspects, and even words and general vocabulary.
- The Actual Language that is Being Studied
How long you take to learn a language is impacted by this other second language you are learning. So, if you are learning Spanish and English is your mother tongue, at least these two share alphabet and some grammar rules and this is plenty to start, actually having even similar words that mean the same.
On the other hand, learning a language that does not share the same alphabet, grammar rules or even pronunciation as the mother tongue is a lot more complex and difficult. It is not the same to learn Spanish with English as a mother tongue than Chinese or Russian.
- Multiple Intelligences and Individual Skills
Taking a bunch of hours and any number of classes sitting in a classroom do not guarantee proper learning of Spanish or any language due to the “multiple intelligences”. Everyone learns differently and acquires knowledge in diverse ways, and sitting in from of a whiteboard and teacher might work for some, but not for everybody.
While some students learn by doing and practicing, others like to learn through visual resources or by sounds. This is key at the moment of teaching a private class as the advantage of online tutoring.
- Dedicated Time to Study
One of the key aspects that influence how long students spend learning Spanish is naturally the dedicated time to do it. Now, more time does not always translate into better learning as the quality is better than quantity in this case.
This means that while time is important, the way in which such time is being invested to learn is even more relevant, but more on that later.
- Attitude and Motivation
When it comes to learning a language, motivation is an important aspect and plays a role in the success of getting to speak Spanish in the given time. Many students motivate themselves by thinking about how they will sound while speaking with a native Spanish speaker when traveling, or the academic and work doors that get opened when a language is learned.
When students are motivated and have a good attitude respecting learning Spanish, such as seeing it as an experience that could be fun and bring plenty of benefits, the probability of achieving the goal of acquiring Spanish fluency gets higher.
Efficient and Inefficient Learning of Spanish Language
As stated, there are many aspects that influence the time a student may spend learning Spanish, specifically emphasizing that many hours sitting in front of a teacher in a classroom or a book does not mean actual successful learning.
When learning a language everything is about the “how”, and while traditional classes are considered a correct method at best, resulting in many cases quite infective by not taking into account other important aspects, the online teaching approach is the one that comes and manages to improve the experience while providing plenty of other benefits.
With online tutoring in Spanish Plus Web, you get to study Spanish at your own pace and from wherever and whenever you want, with an innovative teaching approach that makes time invested by students worthy, focusing on the quality of content and not the number of hours they get to be in front of the screen.
This quality is brought by the fact that background, the preferred way of learning, skills, and pace of the students are considered by the instructor as the expert who is in front of them face to face, helping students to get the easiest way to become fluent in Spanish as native speakers and including lessons with Spanish levels from A1 to C2.
- The Importance of Finding Ideal Spanish Instructor and Program
In Spanish Plus, we consider that all types of misleading marketing and such statements as “Learn Spanish and get fluency in one week or a month” used by academies and online teaching centers is a clear deception. This is impossible to say according to information previously shown and simply because Students´ learning process cannot be standardized and all of them learn differently.
What can be said is that finding the ideal Spanish instructor and program, is essential since through the teacher’s expertise and quality of the program is that students can actually get the most out of their invested time every class.
Your Spanish program + the correct instructor matters, even more, than a bunch of hours in front of the computer saturating your brain with lots of information.
Instead, with the instructor´s help, every class is a journey where interaction is the main factor, with the four main skills addressed along with the student´s pace in every lesson where key content, vocabulary, and resources are included for best convenience and learning.
- Recommended Number of Class Hours to Take
Being a private online tutoring program, students can choose the number of hours to take every day for learning Spanish and improve their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills, at their own pace and with a capable instructor that is a native Spanish speaker as well, improving the learning process.
The number of hours to take daily, weekly, or monthly depends on the students, available time, and eagerness to learn. Now, since quality is better than quantity respecting learning the language, studying Spanish between 30 and 60 minutes offers better results according to our experience, with an everyday class to keep the pace and learn vocabulary and stay in touch with the language on daily basis.
Did you like this article? We also recommend the one about “Learning Spanish Online vs. Learning Spanish in Traditional Classrooms” In which we try to explain the most significant advantages to learn Spanish Online.
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