How long does it take to reach B1?
B1 is the level where a language becomes genuinely useful: you can handle everyday situations, follow the main points of clear speech, and hold a simple conversation. How long it takes depends on the language and the learner. The honest answer is measured in hundreds of focused hours, and how you spend them matters as much as how many there are.
The rough numbers
For a speaker of a related language, reaching B1 in Spanish or German typically takes somewhere in the range of a few hundred hours of study and exposure, often cited around 350 to 400 guided hours, more if the language is distant from your own. Treat any single figure as a ballpark. Your starting point, related languages you know, and study quality all shift it.
Consistency beats intensity
Thirty minutes a day for a year outperforms a cramming month followed by nothing. Language lives in long-term memory, and that memory is built by repeated, spaced exposure rather than marathon sessions that fade fast. The single most reliable predictor of progress is simply not stopping.
Two pillars: vocabulary and verbs
Reaching B1 takes enough words to cover everyday topics, a few thousand, and enough control of verb forms to actually build sentences. These are the two skills that most limit early speaking. Grow both in parallel: vocabulary gives you things to say, and verb forms let you say them correctly.
Where spaced repetition fits
You cannot review everything every day, and you do not need to. You only need to review each item when it is about to fade. Spaced repetition automates exactly that, spending your limited time on what is slipping and skipping what is already solid. Over months this becomes the difference between accumulating a language and re-learning it on a loop.
A realistic plan
Pick a daily minimum you can keep even on a bad day, ten minutes is fine, split it between vocabulary and verb forms, and let a scheduler decide what to show you. Verboteca is built around this: A1 present-tense conjugation and the first vocabulary set are free, so the habit can start today and the hours can accumulate from there.