An A1 to B2 study plan that pairs an ordered course with real speech
Most study plans are a list of resources. This one is a structure: what proportion of your week goes to ordered learning and what goes to real input, how that ratio changes as you move up, and how to check you have actually moved rather than just put in hours.
The plan rests on one principle, which is the reason it is shaped the way it is: ordered learning and real input do different jobs, and the ratio between them should change as you go up. At A1 you need mostly order. At B2 you need mostly input. Getting the ratio wrong in either direction is the most common reason a plan fails.
| Level | Ordered course | Real input |
|---|---|---|
| A1 | About 80% | 20%, heavily supported |
| A2 | About 65% | 35%, dual subtitles throughout |
| B1 | About 40% | 60%, support as needed |
| B2 | About 20% | 80%, target-language subtitles or none |
Five hours a week is the assumption below. Scale the blocks, not the ratios, if you have more or less.
A1: build the skeleton, do not try to watch yet
The goal. Sounds first, then the present tense, then enough vocabulary to describe your immediate surroundings. You are not trying to understand television this month.
- 4 hours: ordered lessons. One notion at a time, in sequence, with a check at the end of each. Do not skip the pronunciation chapter, which is the one everyone skips and the one that determines whether you will be able to hear anything later.
- 1 hour: supported watching. Short bursts, both languages on screen, and no expectation of following the plot. The purpose is to get your ear used to the rhythm, not to comprehend.
Check you have moved: you can say what you did this morning, out loud, without rehearsing.
A2: past tenses, and the start of real listening
The goal. The past, the near future, reflexives, and the first thousand or so words of genuinely everyday vocabulary.
- 3 hours: ordered lessons. This is the level where grammar load is heaviest relative to your ability to absorb it from context, so keep the course dominant.
- 2 hours: one series, dual subtitles. Pick a single show and stay on it. Domestic comedy or everyday drama, not crime or medical, for the reasons in how many words you need to watch without subtitles.
Check you have moved: you can tell a two-minute story in the past tense with the right tense most of the time.
B1: the ratio flips
The goal. Independence. Opinions with reasons, the conditional, object pronouns, connectors that let you build a sentence longer than a clause.
- 2 hours: ordered lessons. Still needed, because B1 grammar is where the structures stop being guessable from context.
- 3 hours: watching, with the support dialled down. Try target-language subtitles alone for a scene, then switch back when you lose the thread. Moving between the two deliberately is the training.
- Start speaking now if you have not. The recognition and production gap widens every month you defer this, and it is the single most common reason B1 learners feel stuck at B1.
Check you have moved: a fifteen-minute conversation with a patient native speaker, without switching languages.
B2: volume, and accepting the plateau
The goal. Roughly doubling your active vocabulary, plus subjunctive, register and the structures that let you argue rather than describe.
- 1 hour: ordered lessons. Mostly the advanced structures that input alone will not teach you reliably, because they are rare enough per episode that you will not meet them often.
- 4 hours: volume. This is the level at which the advice “just watch a lot” finally becomes correct, because your coverage is now high enough for context to do the work.
Expect this to be slow. B1 to B2 is the longest jump on the scale and the one where weekly progress stops being visible. That is not a stall, it is the arithmetic of needing several thousand more word families. The full picture is in CEFR levels explained.
What to cut
- A second app of the same shape. If it is tap-to-select, you already have that skill.
- Grammar you cannot yet use. Reading about the subjunctive at A2 is entertainment, not study.
- Switching shows constantly. It resets the vocabulary you were about to acquire.
- Watching with your own language alone. You will follow the plot and learn nothing, which feels like study and is not.
- Waiting until you are “ready” for real content. With the comprehension gap bridged, you are ready now, and that is the whole argument in why immersion alone does not work at A1 and A2.
Running the plan without assembling it yourself
You can build this from parts: a graded syllabus, a subtitle tool, a flashcard deck and a calendar. The coordination is the hard part, because the three have to keep pointing at the same notion in the same week or the loop does not close.
Streal is this plan as a single thing: 32 ordered chapters from A1 to C2, each lesson about nine minutes with its own quiz, each chapter ending on a test at 75% to pass, and every lesson finishing on the real Netflix lines that contain the notion, with the timecode. While you then watch, it tracks what you have covered and points those notions out in the dialogue, while holding back the ones you have not reached. That is the ratio in the table above, enforced automatically rather than by discipline.
If you are arriving from an app
Start at A2 rather than A1, but verify it with a chapter test rather than a feeling. Post-app learners typically have B1 recognition and A2 production, and the plan works on production. There is more on that in what to do after Duolingo.
Why plans fail, and what to do about it
Almost always one of three things. The ratio was wrong, usually too much input too early, which feels productive and is not. Or the input was not comprehensible, so the hours did not convert. Or there was no check, so nobody noticed that recognition had run ahead of use for months.
All three are measurement problems rather than motivation problems, which is good news: they are fixable by changing what you count, not by trying harder. The broader diagnosis of the listening side is in why you still cannot understand native speakers.
FAQ
How many hours a week does this need?
The plan is written for five, and the ratios matter more than the total. Three focused hours with the right split beats eight unfocused ones, because input below your comprehension threshold converts very poorly.
How long does A1 to B2 take?
Commonly quoted figures are one to two years to B1 at around five hours a week, with B2 taking at least as long again. Those assume a lot about your input quality, so treat them as orders of magnitude rather than a schedule.
Can I follow this without watching television?
Yes, with any real input you enjoy: podcasts, books, YouTube. Television is used here because dialogue is the closest common material to the speech you are trying to understand, and because subtitles let you pair audio with text.
When should I start speaking?
Earlier than feels comfortable, and certainly by A2. The recognition and production gap widens the longer you postpone it, and closing it later costs more than building it alongside.