Is there a way to learn Chinese quickly?

The Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State expects you will reach “General Professional Proficiency” in Chinese (either Mandarin or Cantonese) in 88 weeks, or 2200 class-hours.

Both are classified as Category IV languages, along with Arabic, Korean, and Japanese.

Category III languages (Thai, Ukrainian, Icelandic, etc.) are expected to take 1100 hours to reach a similar level of proficiency. Category II languages (German, Indonesian, Malay, etc.) are 900 hours, and Category I languages (Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, etc.) 600–750 class hours.

They’ve been doing language instruction for motivated adults for 76 years. I doubt there’s a method out there that’s going to be significantly faster.

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