How long will it take to learn german???

i never joined any classes..language classes are pretty expensive here. i learned from a website..it was extremely helpful and quite cheap i can now speak german quite fluently...but i don't think 3 month is enough for german..it's really hard especially the pronunciation of some words are just crazy.

German is also a very big problem. I have joined the volkswagon since graduation. German is an important language for work. But i have learn nothing about it. Recently, the company just open a German language class for the freshmen who have learnt little German. It is divided into two stages, the elementary and the vantage. The class will be give twice with full day a week. It is a very big challenge for me to learn it well for in the day i have to put myself on work so i really have no idea how much time can i devote to German. Many guys just had experience that after they commanded German, their English has downgraded (I am Chinese guy, and English is my second language). If that is the case, i will feel very pity for my English. So will have to be faced with a choice among them? My English is pretty good i think, and will it be helpful when i am learn German? And can i just enhance these two languages together? Guys can you just give me some advice about my problem??

I will tell you my own experience. I enrolled german lessons just for simple reason...for fun. Goethe Institut Manila has trimester (this was in 1997)....one trimester is approximately 3 months. It was 3 hours a week lesson. After one trimester I was able to write, read and speak the language. At least you can do basic conversation, you can say what you want to do, what you want to eat in a restaurant and ask for directions. After 3 trimesters which is approximately 9 months, I was able to work as a tourist guide for the german tourists. My conversations with them though it was not perfect helped me a lot to practice the language. Germans are very appreciative if one is learning their language. They don't expect you to be perfect as long as they understand you. I still continued my german lessons until the 6th level, the highest level in their "Grundstufe" (can be translated as "elementary") and still doing guiding job. Aside from that, I also corresponds with them through email which enhanced my writing skills. One thing that I really had difficulty with the language is the prepositions...it really drives me crazy....I haven't had the opportunity to speak the language for 8 years now, I forgot a lot of words already but if i will read, I can still understand. In 2002, I had the opportunity to visit Germany and stayed there for three months. My hosts were German families who do not speak English at all, so I was forced to speak pure German. And this is the best learning, it's like an immersion class and if we go out, I'm learning with the signages and billboards, and in the restaurants, of course menus are in German, everything German.

If you think you can learn any language in three months it would have to be very intensive, like some course where you would be forced to use it 24 hours a day. A regular university course should give you a fairly complete grammatical base in a year, but that is it, a base. You would not be fluent in German by any means, but you would have acquired enough to be able to understand a magazine article for example. You should be able to order food in a restaurant or ask for directions, etc. In others words simple conversations, but there would still be a lot you wouldn't understand. I had about a year of German at the university many years ago, never used it and forgot everything. A few years ago my son had to study German in High School and I decided to see if I could pick up a little of my lost German. I borrowed his books and retaught myself German in my spare time. I can now understand a lot of simple texts. Understanding conversations is another matter. If you want to be able to speak well, you should probably think about spending some months or more in a German speaking country.