Our current progress in accelerating language learning stands at this. In our lates group of reddit DuoLingo users, which we asked to try our system and compare it to their experience of DL – none of those people will take longer than 75 hours to get from zero to B1 based on their current rate of progress (they are presently about one third of the way through the course, course duration is predictable at this point).
Our claim to them was that we could get them from zero to B1 in 150 hours (or less if they were coachable). So that leaves 75 hours to practice their listening and speaking skills. (Their reading skills are already way ahead of A1 – which equates to one third of the way through our programme).
The basic use of our app takes care of listening to sympathetic conversation partners who are intelligent and wish to be understood. The additional focussed listening hours are about reaching from their to be able to enjoy audio books and movies in your target language. Being realistic, the goal is not that you will hear and understand every word, but that you will hear and understand enough to get the point and enjoy and benefit from the experience. We’ve been working hard extending our understanding of accelerated learning into this listening space and believe we are on track to transform listening ability from sympathetic conversation to movies and audio books in less than 40 hours.
That will leave 30 hours at least to practice speaking over and above what is already happening within our app.
So we are very comfortable in our claim of 150 hours. Could you do better? Sure it’s possible. Our other recent student is now up to about 33 hours on the app and is 85% of the way through our zero to B1 French curriculum. And she is about to be our first guest user of our new accelerated listening skills method. We’ll keep you posted. Success is 40 hours or less.