How long will it actually take?
Built on current NFATC programme timelines — including Category I hours derived transparently from its weeks and typical class week — then adjusted for the level you want, the languages you already speak, and how you plan to study. It will sometimes tell you your plan cannot get you there. That is the useful part.
How this is worked out
Every estimate is one multiplication. The current NFATC baseline for your language — 690 class hours for Spanish when its 30-week schedule is multiplied by the page's typical 23-hour class week, and an explicit 2,200 for Mandarin — is multiplied by the share your target level needs, a discount for languages you already speak, and a multiplier for how you study.
The training schedule and class-hour inputs come from NFATC; everything applied on top is ours. The CEFR level factors are normalised from the shape of Cambridge’s published guided-learning bands rather than fitted to every band. The method multipliers and related-language discounts are estimates, marked as such in the code and in the caveats under every result.
The calendar figure is then just division: total hours over the hours a week your pace supplies. That part is arithmetic and carries no assumptions beyond the ones already made — which is why the hour count, not the finish date, is the number worth arguing about.
The full methodology, coefficient by coefficient, including which are published and which are ours.
It will tell you your plan does not work
Ask for C1 by app and this planning model does not return a large number — it applies its disclosed B1 app-only ceiling. A long project and a modelled ceiling look identical when both are printed only as hours, so the tool surfaces the assumption and invites you to change the method or challenge the model.
Every tool here can decline to answer, and that is the most useful thing they do.
Common questions
- Why does this give a bigger number than other calculators?
- Two reasons, both deliberate. We map NFATC’s integrated ILR 3 speaking-and-listening endpoint to a C1 planning target, while stating that no standards body publishes that crosswalk. We also apply a method multiplier that most calculators skip, which is the largest factor after the language. These are planning figures with a wide spread, not promises.
- Are the FSI hours real, or an internet myth?
- The source inputs are real and routinely misquoted. The current State Department page prints hour totals for Categories II–IV; for Category I it lists 24–30 weeks, which this site converts transparently using the same page’s typical 23 class hours per week. Its endpoint is an integrated ILR 3 in speaking and listening, and a typical week also includes 17 hours of self-study. These baselines are not total study time, casual app time, or an official CEFR equivalence.
- Why does it ask what languages I already speak?
- Because language transfer can matter and is almost never modelled. This model assigns Spanish→Portuguese roughly 30% and Spanish→Japanese zero; those pair-specific coefficients are disclosed estimates, not findings from the cited research. Leaving the field blank gives you the figure for someone starting from English alone. The discount is capped so listing five Romance languages cannot make Italian look nearly free.
- How accurate is this?
- It is a planning model built from a current official training timeline plus disclosed estimates. On the raw baselines, Mandarin is about 3.2 times Spanish; that comparison is more stable than a finish date because both rows use the same level and method assumptions. It is still not a promise for an individual learner, and Category I itself varies by language.
- Why are there no course links on this page?
- So that it can be posted to Reddit and other communities without being an advertisement, and so that the recommendations it produces are believable. Affiliate links appear only on the course and comparison pages, which is enforced by a test rather than by intention. It also means the matching rules can be checked: they were written before any merchant existed, and the ranking code cannot read commission rates.
Sources
Everything this tool rests on. The current NFATC programme baseline is printed or transparently derived from the same page; the factors applied on top are ours and are marked as estimates.
- Foreign Language Training — US Department of State, National Foreign Affairs Training Center
The current NFATC training timelines: a typical week is 23 class hours plus 17 hours of self-study, aimed at an integrated ILR 3 in Speaking and Listening. Category I lists 24–30 weeks; using the page's typical class week, this site derives 552–690 class hours. Categories II–IV print 828, 1,012 and 2,200.
- 3 FAM 3910 — Language Incentive Pay Program — US Department of State, Foreign Affairs Manual
The separate current S-3/R-3 normal-course table: Spanish is 24 weeks, French 30, Category II 36, Category III 44 and Category IV 88. Its endpoint differs from the current NFATC integrated Speaking + Listening score, so the two tables must not be merged.
- Guided learning hours — Cambridge English
The cumulative shape between CEFR levels. Cambridge publishes guided-learning-hour bands for its English qualifications (A2 180–200, B1 350–400, B2 500–600, C1 700–800, C2 1,000–1,200). Our factors are normalised against C1 rather than fitted to every band; for example, 0.27 × the 750-hour C1 midpoint is 202.5, just above the A2 band.
- ILR scale — Wikipedia
That no official ILR-to-CEFR crosswalk exists. Published academic tables place ILR 3/3+ at C1; others put C1 nearer ILR 4. We take the lower reading, which makes our estimates the more conservative of the two.
- Zhongwen Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) — Wikipedia
That Hanban's claimed one-to-one HSK-to-CEFR equivalence was rejected by CEFR bodies and is disputed by the German and French associations of Chinese-language teachers, who place old HSK 6 nearer B2–C1 than C2.
- The effect of previously acquired languages on third language acquisition — Heliyon 10(4), original research (2024)
Empirical evidence that previously acquired languages can influence third-language processing, and that structural similarity mattered more than broad typological proximity in the tested tasks. It does not publish an hours-saved coefficient for any pair, so it supports the existence and complexity of transfer but not this site's 30% estimate.
This tool is free and carries no ads or affiliate links. It is funded by commission on some course links elsewhere on the site — which pages, and how that is kept out of the recommendations.
If you got something out of this and are not going to buy a course, you can buy me a coffee instead. Entirely optional, and it changes nothing about what the calculator tells you.