The chart shown on the right is the language learning timeline for native English speakers through the Directorate of Language Studies program provided by the National Foreign Affairs Training Center. This chart is used as the general measure of difficulty for how much time and effort it will take a native English speaker to learn a language. It is important to note, however, that an independent learner will likely not achieve fluency in these timelines. Their program is designed to have "23 hours per week in class and 17 hours of self-study" (National Foreign Affairs Training Center, n.d.) just in the target language. This amounts to a full 40 hours of direct learning and language exposure every week. When estimating the time it will take to achieve fluency, independent learners also have to add the self-study hours. For example, a native English speaker wanting to learn Dutch would have to spend approximately 960 hours studying; but, if they wanted to learn Korean, they would have to spend approximately 3,696 hours studying. It should also be noted that this is not a universal chart. Speakers of other languages might find different languages to be easier or harder to learn than an English speaker would find them.

Additionally, it is important to consider what someone's goals are when learning a language. Different measures of fluency exist, but the one used by the National Foreign Affairs Training Center is the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR). The ILR uses six different base proficiency levels with an additional five supplementary proficiency levels, which are half-steps between each base level (n.d.). Through spending the amount of time recommended in the chart on the right, a language learner would be brought to the ILR's level 3, general professional proficiency, which is the fourth level listed. Depending on the goals of the individial language learner, they may only want to be able to learn a few phrases in order to travel, in which case, they would need to spend less time to learn the language. Others may want to be able to get through conversations or have a working knowledge of the language, in which case the timeframe on the right may be relatively accurate for their goals. Others still may be learning the language in order to achieve a near-native proficiency, which would not only require significant amounts of time beyond the chart, but would likely also require they spend time living in a country that speaks the language.