That question actually depends on two other questions. What do you mean by "fluently" and what language do you want to speak?
Let's start with what is meant by fluency in a language.
Imagine you grew up hearing your grandparents speak Spanish every Sunday, but you never studied the language, and you're a bit hesitant to speak it with them. But you and your siblings decide to go to Mexico to find your roots--to find the small town in Morelos where your grandparents grew up, met and married. Once you get there, the first person you meet says to you, "Va a haber una fiesta en la parroquia en media hora, entonces no se puede estacionar alrededor del zocalo."
Did you feel fluent? Probably not. Maybe the word "fiesta"...
So there are degrees of fluency, from none at all, to a workable knowledge that lets you order in a restaurant, to another level where you could probably do well in a job situation, to another level where you can read, write and converse almost like a native.
The American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the US government's Interagency Roundtable on Languages have figured out ways to answer the question, "What do we mean by fluency in a language?" Both have devised scales that help us locate where a language learner's proficiency is.
To me, the most useful scale is the ILR. Here's what it says about Elementary (Level 1) proficiency, where most students end up after one full year of college language:
Speaking 1+ (Elementary Proficiency, Plus) Can initiate and maintain predictable face-to-face conversations and satisfy limited social demands. He/she may, however, have little understanding of the social conventions of conversation. The interlocutor is generally required to strain and employ real-world knowledge to understand even some simple speech. The speaker at this level may hesitate and may have to change subjects due to lack of language resources. Range and control of the language are limited. Speech largely consists of a series of short, discrete utterances.
Examples: The individual is able to satisfy most travel and accommodation needs and a limited range of social demands beyond exchange of skeletal biographic information. Speaking ability may extend beyond immediate survival needs. Accuracy in basic grammatical relations is evident, although not consistent. May exhibit the more common forms of verb tenses, for example, but may make frequent errors in formation and selection. While some structures are established, errors occur in more complex patterns. The individual typically cannot sustain coherent structures in longer utterances or unfamiliar situations. Ability to describe and give precise information is limited. Person, space and time references are often used incorrectly. Pronunciation is understandable to natives used to dealing with foreigners. Can combine most significant sounds with reasonable comprehensibility, but has difficulty in producing certain sounds in certain positions or in certain combinations. Speech will usually be labored. Frequently has to repeat utterances to be understood by the general public.
OK, so fluency is a matter of degree, so to speak--whether you're satisfied to achieve level 1 fluency is up to you. Most of us had rather get beyond this level, though. Perhaps you need to speak the language for a job situation, or you want to be able to read magazines, newspapers or trade journals in the language. You're obviously going to have to "kick it up a notch."
So how long will it take to get to level 1, and how long will it take to get to levels 2 and 3?
Now it's time to answer question 2: Which language do you want to learn?
The International Center for Language Studies has designed a chart for English speakers, and it categorizes languages according to how many hours of instruction will be necessary for the typical, literate speaker of English (known as L1) to achieve different levels of proficiency in L2 (that's your target, or desired, language). For L1 English speakers, some languages are going to take longer (more instruction hours) than others.
The chart shows the hours of instruction for English L1s to achieve levels of proficiency. For most of the languages we teach on US college campuses (Spanish, French, German, Portuguese and Italian), it's going to take you about 150 hours of classroom study to get to level 1. That means a minimum of two semesters.
What if you want to get to level 1 in Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Arabic? Sorry, Charly. That will be 350 hours.
That chart of "Classroom Hours to Achieve Proficiency Levels" is very informative.
Bottom line, you're going to have to do some work to attain a workable level of proficiency. Sorry about the redundancy, but that's the key word: work. If it's worth it to you to attain a working knowledge of a language, it's going to require some serious hours of instruction and independent study.
Which might suggest another question to you.... "Can I do this with a CD program? How about one of those programs they advertise where you learn Spanish while you drink mojitos on the beach?"
Those are good questions for another blog entry!
