I will be spending May - Sept 2012 in Germany and want to be fluent in speaking and proficient in reading / writing by May 2012.
I have started the journey to learning German I am currently using Rosetta stone 3.5 and German Demystified. Currently I am spending 30 to 60 minutes per day learning and practicing.
Is 30 to 60 minutes per day enough to get fluent in the Language in 8 months?
It sounds enough, 60 minutes is an ideal time if you could keep on the good work for 8 months. I had a problem that I couldn't stop learning when I started it and it took 4-5 hours one day. So I had to remove "German" from tomorrow's daily plan.
like everything else, a little bit a lot is better than a lot a little bit. for example, reading an hour or two a day for five days is better than reading only one day for ten hours.
The thing, I'd like to say is, to learn German grammar you better finish a topic first. otherwise you get confused by a very wide range of grammar topics. For example, make sure you've finished learning everything (necessary) about "sentence structure" then go for the next topic.
As a side note: Most important parts of Grammar are, Noun genders and The four German cases, as far as I experienced.
Well, what do you mean by fluent? :-)
I've been learning German for eleven months and has become fluent, but I have been living in Germany the whole time. I have also met loads of German learners during my stay there. This answer is my highly subjective guess at where you'll be in eight months based on this experience.
Reading
You'll be able to read books and newspapers without a dictionary, but not understand every word. Your vocabulary should be at least 4000 words and your English knowledge will enable you to guess the meaning of many other words.
Writing
With time and a dictionary you'll be able to construct well formed and correct sentences, but it will not sound native - your language simply won't have the correct "flow".
Speaking
If you find other German learners or a German "Stammtisch" to practice with you will be able to get your point across, but inelegantly and with lots of errors. (For example errors with noun genders and expressions with fixed prepositions.) If you have only practiced alone you will not be able to say much, but will quickly pick it up as you get to Germany.
Listening
You will be able to understand learners of German, but will understand native Germans only when they make sure to speak slowly and clearly to you. When natives speak between themselves you will only be able to get the general idea of what they are talking about - or not even that.
This last paragraph may seem overly negative, but I have seen again and again foreign learners which can speak intelligently about almost any subject in German, but only with other foreigners. When speaking with natives it becomes all to evident that their listening skills are not up to par. Germans simply speak too fast for them.
It also highly depends on which foreign languages you already know and what your mother tongue is. Since you specified Vancouver, I assume it's English. Knowledge of a Scandinavian or the Dutch language would obviously help a lot. Same goes for any language with genders and noun declension. For instance, Russian native speakers also tend to pick up German a lot faster than others, due to familiarity with many sounds and a good feel for grammar.
A part from that, I can only agree with Stovner. You should be more or less okay on a written level, except for the odd article mistakes and maybe poor word order. But speaking & listening will cause a great deal of trouble for you. Especially when you have background noises, e.g. in the pub. You'll also hate how limited your humour and your wit are ("Schlagfertigkeit"), because you'll constantly think how to phrase something.
Also consider which region or city you're going to as regional expressions or strong dialect will knock out any chance of a decent casual conversation with natives ;)
It took me 2 years of working in an office, in Germany, with Germans. (Now, eight years later, I'd call myself, uh, "conversational" or "advanced" ... I mean I could hold my own in pretty much any conversation, but I don't know that I'd say "fluent" because I still have an accent and still come across the occasional word I don't know.
I think as long as you enjoy taking in more German, do it. The amount of time you've mentioned should be a good base, but if you can take more and if you draw happiness from being exposed to a language you love, do it. You will learn very fast that way.
Viel Glück und viel Spaß beim Lernen!
