According to an article by the famous Claude Piron one requires 180 to 220 hours ( according to the native language ) to a reach mastery level in Esperanto.

What has been your experience? Have you achieved a "mastery" level in Esperanto with just that much effort ?

What is this "mastery" Claude Prion is mentioning. Is it mastery in using Esperanto for day to day usage ( like B1+ / B2 level ) OR even for all professional usage (B2+ / C1 ) like competency?

I guess, that you don't want to hear this kind of answer, but it all depends.

It depends on:

• Is your native language an Indoeuropean one?
  
• Can you any Indoeuropean language?
  
• Can you any language from the European branch of the Indoeuropean languages?
  
• What is your level of eduction? How accustomed are you to learning and studying in general and languages in specific?
  
• How motivated are you?
  ...

I would say, that you will be more than able to read and write everyday texts with that amount of hours. Probably you will also be capable to understand everyday speech. In order to be able to speak yourself you must obviously find people to speak with. To be highly conversational requires, that you must speak with people from different (than yours) language background, so that neither of you can subconsciously "fill too many gaps". At least I've found that to be an eye-opener (I'm still on that path).

If you are referring to CEFR levels, come to UK 2019 in Lahti and have you tested.

Metsis:I guess, that you don't want to hear this kind of answer, but it all depends.

It depends on:

• Is your native language an Indoeuropean one?
  
• Can you any Indoeuropean language?
  
• Can you any language from the European branch of the Indoeuropean languages?
  
• What is your level of eduction? How accustomed are you to learning and studying in general and languages in specific?
  
• How motivated are you?
  ...

I would say, that you will be more than able to read and write everyday texts with that amount of hours. Probably you will also be capable to understand everyday speech. In order to be able to speak yourself you must obviously find people to speak with. To be highly conversational requires, that you must speak with people from different (than yours) language background, so that neither of you can subconsciously "fill too many gaps". At least I've found that to be an eye-opener (I'm still on that path).

If you are referring to CEFR levels, come to UK 2019 in Lahti and have you tested.

Yes, true all those factors impact the number of hours required to reach conversational fluency..

I just wanted to have a short survey about if that has been true for those who had invested that amount of hours into Esperanto learning.

Lahiti is too far away & no budget for an international travel this yesr. Maybe I will attend a Universala Kongreso few years from now.

Ok, let me estimate. There are 62 skill areas in the E-o tree, course in Duolingo. The skill areas have a varying number of exercises, but let's simplify things and say 10 exercises in each on the average. That makes 620 exercises to complete the whole E-o course. Duolingo claims, that you can complete an exercise in 5 minutes, but I say 10 minutes is more realistic expected value. So we can expect to have to spend 6200 minutes to complete the course. That's ca. 103 hours. Note, that that number doesn't include time to read the conversations. (As I side note, you're better off first with La teorio Nakamura here in Lernu.)

Anyway by the end you should have a pretty good understanding of grammar and written language. Then you need ,say, an intensive weekend boot camp course with a foreign-speaker instruisto of some 20 hours to able to understand spoken language and to be able to speak yourself. Add some more courses and 180–220 hours will carry you at least to the B1 level.

PS. I wrote a more extensive description of Duolingo, what it is and what issues there are, at a discussion forum Finna babilejo, part 1 and part 2. The articles are in E-o.

Metsis:Ok, let me estimate. There are 62 skill areas in the E-o tree, course in Duolingo. The skill areas have a varying number of exercises, but let's simplify things and say 10 exercises in each on the average. That makes 620 exercises to complete the whole E-o course. Duolingo claims, that you can complete an exercise in 5 minutes, but I say 10 minutes is more realistic expected value. So we can expect to have to spend 6200 minutes to complete the course. That's ca. 103 hours. Note, that that number doesn't include time to read the conversations. (As I side note, you're better off first with La teorio Nakamura here in Lernu.)

Anyway by the end you should have a pretty good understanding of grammar and written language. Then you need ,say, an intensive weekend boot camp course with a foreign-speaker instruisto of some 20 hours to able to understand spoken language and to be able to speak yourself. Add some more courses and 180–220 hours will carry you at least to the B1 level.

PS. I wrote a more extensive description of Duolingo, what it is and what issues there are, at a discussion forum Finna babilejo, part 1 and part 2. The articles are in E-o.

Hi that's a good reply. Personally even I think many may need around 120 to 180 hours to reach a B1. I have read about Chuck Smith who took 30 mins of work daily for almost 8 months to reach a conversational level ( which corresponds to a B1 ).
However Dr. Ruth Keveess-Cohen one of the co-contributor of the Duolingo course was able to reach a C1 in 1 year with an average of around 1 hour of effort on weekdays and active participation in clubs and other events.

I tested out 2 crown levels of the whole Duolingo Esperanto tree in almost 12 to 15 hours. That is all the 62 or 63 skill areas . La Teorio Nakamura - I have done few of the lessons.

I can read stuffs of B2 / C1 level but my other skills ( speaking, writing and listening ) is not yet at B2 level. My listening skill may be at B1+ level. I can manage to chat quite a bit and write very small blogs in Esperanto ( a language level of A2 / B1 )
I don't speak Esperanto that much except during our club meets once in a month - which I have been doing for the past 10 months. And I have been to a national Esperanto congress

Being able to read or write in Esperanto is relatively easy, after minimum study, though as Metsis points out there are many factors affecting speed of acquisition.

The hardest thing is getting to the point where one can hold a conversation in Esperanto without too much hesitation. In my case I would say that it took attendance at two week-long international youth congresses.