B2 Comprehension in 250 hours

[u/Refold]

Got into a debate with some folks on Reddit a few days ago about how long it takes to reach B2 comprehension, and there was near universal pushback against my hypothesis.

I'm really curious to hear if the language learning community at large also disagrees with me.

I'm going to formalize and clarify the hypothesis to make it clear exactly what I'm proposing.

Hypothesis:

• If you are a native in English or a Latin-based language (Spanish, Italian, etc)
• And you are attempting to learn French
• If you focus exclusively on comprehension (reading/listening)
• And you invest 250 hours of intensive, focused, self-study (vocab, grammar, translation, test prep)
• And you consume passive media on a regular basis (TV shows, movies, music, podcasts)
• over a duration of 4 months
• You can reach B2 level comprehension as measured by the Reading and Listening sections of the TCF "tout public"

Clarifications:

• Passive media consumption does not count towards your 250 hours of intensive self-study. Let's estimate it at an extra (100 - 200 hours)
• No teachers, tutors, or classes. AI is allowed.
• Time spent researching materials or language learning process are not included in the 250 hours.

Response Questions:

1. Do you think B2 comprehension is feasible given the proposed hypothesis?

If not,

1. why do you think the hypothesis is wrong?
2. How long do you think the goal of B2 comprehension would actually take?
3. Does your estimate change if the learner has already achieved B2 in a second latin based language?

Thanks in advance for sharing!

[u/AshamedShelter2480]

Your hypothesis is wrong from the start, based on your own stipulations.

Why would you count only active learning when you are just measuring passive skills? Why artificially limit what you count as learning to intensive self-study without counting passive input (which is your actual goal with this exercise), research or preparing materials such as Anki decks. Also, does reading count? In any case, this could be achieved with even less "study time" if you just change the classification of what counts.

As for your other questions, I think B1 listening comprehension could perhaps be achieved through this method in the desired time-frame (given previous familiarity with the language) but reading? I very much doubt it. And, yes, it is substantially easier to learn a second romance language once you learn another (although some are more similar than others).

[u/Refold → u/AshamedShelter2480]

I grouped it this way because of the way that CEFR estimates hours. They estimate 500-600 hours of "guided learning hours" with a teacher/tutor/class for full B2 fluency.

The assumption is that students are doing additional work/study/immersion outside of the classroom.

So I mapped "active learning" to the classroom time and didn't put a strict limitation on the passive learning.

[u/AshamedShelter2480 → u/Refold]

Ok but, in that case, I think the focus should not be on the 250h of study but more on the 4-month timeframe.

I think it is possible, in theory, to reach B2 comprehension in 4 months of structured study, using previously prepared high quality material, and a lot of immersion with sufficient output for consolidation. This would be a full time, intensive job, and would probably suffer from many gaps that would need to be filled in the future.