So if you are over 40 and want to learn German as a second language, that is a good thought.

The German language is the official language of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Indo-European language family, along with English, and Dutch languages. The recorded history of German languages starts with the Romans, and after several centuries there was only a single “Germanic” language, with minor dialect differences.  

Many factors 

Despite the age factor, the time taken to learn German depends on three factors such as the attitude of the learner, the time spent by the learner with the language, the interest in the language, getting motivated in their learning process, and the learner’s attention to the language.

Young people

So with a great acquisition and attentiveness to the language, you can learn the language easily. But it is a common thought that young people will acquire things easier and learn faster than the old ones.

Total hours 

Research indicates an estimated time that is required to learn German languages with lots of learners who are over 40. It takes approximately 600 – 800 hours to reach basic fluency in all the groups. If you spend 10 hours a day learning a language, then for reaching basic fluency it takes 90 -100 days for German. But if you spend only five hours a day then it takes up to three months of time.  

Focus on activities

Many will do the learning process through some activities and that will be an easier process in the learning process. It will take a longer time if you did not learn through these methods. So it’s better to focus on activities that are easy to organize, and that may reading a German newspaper, making use of books, apps, websites,  podcasts, etc. 

Moreover, for older people through these activities, they might learn faster than expected, and then it might be easier for them to understand. 

Combination of works learning

If the learning process is done along with the combination of other works such as at the time when you are doing other work, washing the clothes, when driving your car, walking, exercising when you are doing in your free time, etc. will make you learn the language faster even if you are over 40 years old.

Final level

To reach full professional fluency, it would take quite long if you are over 40 years old. It would also be twice the time or four times as long based on the factors that are mentioned above.  

An intense learning, or something similar, would help you to achieve basic conversational fluency in two months for the German language. It is important to get a knowledge of some basic vocabulary and see how the language works. Moving on to fluency will give you confidence. If you want to learn German with experts, then join your classes with Multibashi to learn the language easily in no time. All the best!!!