Is Spanish Hard To Learn? (Helpful Content!)

Spanish is considered one of the easiest languages for native English speakers to learn. That said, learning languages is always a challenge, requiring patience, persistence, and commitment. Spanish is similar enough to English that English speakers have a good head start. It will still be easier for some than others.

Learning languages is challenging, no matter the language, and, if nothing else, time consuming.

Even the “easiest” languages take months of study to learn, and once that’s over, you’ve still got a long way to go in terms of getting properly familiar and fluent with the language.

Let’s find out more.

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How long does it take to learn Spanish?

The answer to this question depends on a variety of factors.

However, we certainly can take a general view of how long you might need in terms of the initial study to learn a language and be able to converse comfortably in it.

In general terms, Spanish is one of the quicker languages to learn for an English speaker.

You can expect it to take around 600 hours of study—this would translate to around 24 weeks, or six months, of full-time studying.

This is definitely a relatively short period of time to be able to learn a language, then.

That said, when you think about it, it’s still a considerable amount of time to spend studying any one thing.

You’ll have to be patient and committed to what you’re doing.

The initial study period is arguably the most crucial aspect of the learning process.

This is where you’ll learn the building blocks of the language.

By the end of this study period, you should be familiar enough with the language that you can basically conduct yourself on a day-to-day basis in Spanish.

However, the learning process is far from over by this point.

Ideally, the best way to get the most out of your initial study is to then immerse yourself in a Spanish-speaking area.

Use it on a daily basis, both listening and speaking.

After a couple of years of this, most people tend to be more or less fluent, if not at native level, in the language.

Of course, again, this will vary from person to person, but the point is that you’ve still got a long way to go after your initial six months of study.

How is the difficulty of Spanish categorized?

What level of difficulty is Spanish?

For English speakers, the relative difficulty of learning other languages is defined in the FSI scale.

This is a ranking system by which languages are categorized by difficulty to learn.

The scale goes from I-V, with category I languages being the easiest for English speakers to learn.

Spanish is a category I language. In other words, it’s among the easiest languages for an English speaker to learn.

This scale also ranks languages based on the length of study required to learn them.

For Spanish, this period is defined as roughly six months.

Again, though, learning any other language is never outright easy.

Spanish has features such as grammatical gender which make it feel somewhat unfamiliar to an English ear.

Don’t go into the process thinking that it will be a breeze just because Spanish is easier to learn than Cantonese.

It takes time, patience, effort and commitment, even for the easiest languages.

What about French—is Spanish easier or harder?

Is Spanish easier to learn than French?

Again, it can depend on the person.

For many, Spanish is indeed easier to learn than French, if only for around the first year of study.

One thing that linguists often point out about the process of learning Spanish for English speakers is that the pronunciations are relatively easy to get to grips with.

By contrast, French pronunciation can be a good deal harder for English speakers to learn.

Again, though, this is only for the first year or so of study.

Once a French learner has gotten to grips with the pronunciation, there may not really be a great deal of difference in which language is harder to learn.

How easy is learning Spanish for English speakers, then?

Is learning Spanish easy for an English speaker?

Relatively speaking, yes, being an English speaker will make Spanish easier for you to learn.

The languages are very similar and closely related, with a great deal of shared vocabulary and metaphor.

If you are in the U.S., one environmental factor that may make it easier to learn is the prevalence of spoken Spanish in the country—with around 50 million native Spanish speakers living in the U.S., it’s quite easy to immerse yourself in Spanish culture and language.

However, two languages being closely related in terms of their family doesn’t always mean they are easier to learn.

Spanish is probably easier to learn than German for an English speaker, even though English and German are much more closely related.

So, ultimately, Spanish is one of the easier languages for English speakers to learn.

Nevertheless, learning languages is always a challenge, and you need to be prepared for that.

If you’re looking to learn a language, then, you’re in for a challenge no matter how you look at it.

Learning is different for every student, and you may happen to find it easier or harder to learn Spanish than the average learner.

Whatever the case may be, learning Spanish to the point of native fluency will take years of study and practice—there are never any shortcuts when it comes to language.
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