In all honesty, you can do it in 5-9 months (or even shorter), provided you focus on <em>learning</em>, rather than <em>studying</em>. B1 isn't terribly difficult to achieve if you focus on efficient methods of learning. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of the blogs mezzoguild.com and fluentin3months.com, but I highly suggest you check them out. They can give you great insights into language learning. Another well-known polyglot, Khatzumoto of ajatt.com, says that people should focus on "getting used to a language," rather than studying it.

If you'd like, I can give you more personalized tips sometime. Being a Linguisitics student and a second language learner myself, I've actually just completed a bunch of very fruitful SLA (Second Language Acquisition) research that I'd love to share with you! Feel free to send me a message!

Two years and even then you have to work for it. As everything considering study, it also depends on your own talent. But don't underestimate these levels! Many members here totally overestimate their capacities. I often urge myself not to say to people: "You can do with one or two stripes less here, in your profile".

That depend of person some learns more than another, but if you stop talk in your native language and start talk just in French, listenning music just in French and watch movies just in French work everyday in translations and grammar of things you watched or listenned etc etc in few months you know talk French, just tranning the conversation, reading and listenning, put post it in all ur house with words in french for start and buy 2 goods dictionaries

Ça dépend ^^ i have the level B1 ! It took one year of studying at university .i think that each person has his own ability to learn ^^ if you study hard you will get it in less than year ^.^ good luck ~

It took me around 12-18 months.  Although, I'm sure this figure varies dramatically among learners depending on native language, learning technique, access to native speakers for practice etc.

French is not too difficult for English speakers.  There is a HUGE common vocabulary and the grammar (like conjugation endings, the subjunctive mood etc) may seem tricky at first but its definitely manageable!

Hardest aspect of French is probably the pronunciation, as this language contains several sounds that English doesn't (examples which come to mind: like the throat-y "r" and nasal vowels like "en", "un" and "on").

Many learners think that the high number of silent letters in French make it confusing to read (eg. can you believe that "il mange" and "ils mangent" are pronounced the same way?).  However, there are some pretty clear and finite rules regarding certain letter endings/combination which are ALWAYS silent.  On the whole, the "hurdle" of silent letters in French is very easily overcome.  Just takes getting used to.

Sorry! that was probably more information than what you were looking for.  bonne chance :)