Just bought the course and was wondering how long it was taking everyone to get "proficient" (meaning able to get by with the basics i.e., greeting, getting around, ordering in restaurants, etc.). I know this is subjective, so how long did you practice on average each day/week and then how long did it take for you to get comfortable?

I have learnt German for six years at school and got this course to help me further. It takes varying time from person to person but after six years I speak primarily in German! I would say it could take a few months to a year to fully understand the basics and say them fluently, on an hour or two a day. To me, the most important part was knowing the rules of German, so then I could use the phrases to suit any situation. I now talk German around 4-5 hours a day, for either studying, communicating with the natives at my school or just to annoy people. Speaking even in limited German was a great help i.e. shopping with relatives at the supermarket; Ich moechte..... Ich brauche.... Any small bit helps, or even to yourself at home. Lola

It is a tough language with a lot to learn. It depends on how much you can remember. There are endless things to learn in German. Expect it to take time and a lot of study. English is very simple and straight forward. German is not. One of the few languages in the world that has THREE forms. Male, Female and neutral. French only has two. Make sure to learn at home with others of the same language as you. Learning in Germany is a terrible idea. As there training methods are terrible and they have the nerve to charge you a fortune for poor training and terrible teachers.

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Unfortunately I don't think you will get the answer you want from anyone as everyone has their own learning pace......one person can say he/she has put in 5 hours a week for a month and learnt the first 10 lessons and another person will have put in the same hours and only learnt 5. Personally I am a fairly slow learner but I have found this course very easy and the grammar is so much easier to learn than french......granted french has only two genres and German has three but for the most part, in German the genre is determined by the end of the word itself as well as the adjective. Whereas in french it is only the adjective that determines the genre, you either have to know or guess. To vary my learning curve (as I get bored with one thing easily) I have used German children's books and German music to help me, if you would like more info on where to find these let me know)

just for the record.........i didnt mean adjective! ha ha, apparently i'm not that great at english either!

Brad is unimpressed with the teaching of German in Germany. My tiny bit of experience with that was a short, one month, course with the Goethe Institut in Bonn. It was excellent and I would love to be able to do a longer course with them.

Jo Allen, I think you mean "gender", not "genre". Gender means masculine, feminine or neuter in this context. Gender means a classification of something, like science fiction is a genre of movie.

I am thinking of German as a long time project. Just something to do. I like languages. Maybe I could find like minded people in my area. I took me 3 weeks just to go over lesson one and lesson 2

Amen sister. I tend to plod along, trying to ensure I've got it down before jumping ahead too fast. I love the program, taking all the time necessary to progress.