I've been doing Spanish on Duolingo for about 3 months. Prior to this I only had a half year in middle school in the 80s. I'm not quite 20% of the way through their material. I just got back from a trip in a Spanish speaking country and to be honest was pleasantly surprised at the level of ability I had. Mind you that level was nowhere near good, I'm sure I'd still classify as an A1 level. But I had figured everything would still sound like gibberish to me and that was far from the case.