Keyword is "speak" fluently, and not necessarily read or write. According to the FSI Language Difficulty Ranking, the "most" difficult languages are Category IV: 44 weeks (1100 hours) and Category V: 88 weeks (2200 hours). There are also IV* for extra difficult Category IV languages, so I guess somewhere between IV and V. This criteria is to achieve Professional Proficiency in Speaking and Reading.
However, a lot of these languages have extremely difficult writing systems as well (Japanese, Chinese, Thai, etc), which probably bumps them up a lot. Taking reading and writing out of the equation, I don't see why Chinese (Cat V) should take double as long as, say, Vietnamese (Cat IV*), since they are both tonal, and Vietnamese actually has more tones and is in many ways harder to pronounce (Vietnamese uses a modified Latin alphabet, Chinese obviously has a very intricate writing system).
Given this, do you think it is possible to learn any language, just speaking, to fluency in one year? Roughly ~3 hours of study a day for one year will get you 1095 hours, and even if reading/writing are included, then that should be enough "Professional Proficiency" for any Cat IV language, according the FSI. Additionally, I can't imagine that Chinese or Japanese wouldn't fall to a Cat IV if reading/writing were excluded, given that Chinese grammar and phonology is not vastly different (and in many ways easier) than a lot of the other Cat IV languages, and I feel it is only the writing that bumps it up to a Cat V.
So, essentially, would 3 hours of study for a day, for one year, be enough to speak (not necessarily read or write) any language, Categories I-V?
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