What are the hardest things about learning: English vs Spanish?

Question

The Hardest things about learning English

1.Vowel sounds change from word to word (Why?);
1. Contractions (Aren't strange to us);
2. The auxillary verb “do” (nothing like it in Spanish) for example "What do you do?" in Spanish is odd "Qué hace usted hace";
3. Negatives (i.e. using not instead of no and again that "do" word pops up often);
4. Making the “er” sound (my Colombiana simply cannot make this sound);
5. Sentence structure (how odd our placement of adjectives, adverbs, direct objects,etc.) 6. Understanding spoken english

The Hardest things about learning Spanish

1. Verb conjugations (only the 3rd person singular changes with many english verbs)
2. Feminine versus Masculine (why assign gender to inaminate objects)
3. Recognizing how “Se” is used (not always clear in more complex sentences whether reflexive, general expression, passive, etc.)
4. So many demonstratives (fem. masc. sing. plur.near, far, more far)
5. Sentence structure (Strange for us english speakers)
6. Understanding the different accents

I am curious about what others find the most difficult.

• Nice post! - TheSilentHer Mar 7, 2011

Answer 1

Most of what can be said as being difficult in one language, it can also be said for the other language. If prepositions are hard for Spanish learners it as hard for English learners and so forth.

To start speaking the language, it is also one of the fears people have to deal in both languages, and I guess it happens with any other language. We have to learn how to curb that fear/insecurity.

Most people I know, Spanish or English at one point or another they state "I understand more than I can speak it"

Ain't that the truth?

La mayoría de lo que se pueda decir que es difícil de un idioma, también se puede decir del otro. Si las preposiciones son difíciles para los que aprenden castellano, lo es tan difícil para los que aprenden inglés.

Comenzar a hablar el idioma es también uno de los miedos con el que tenemos lidiar en ambos idiomas, y creo que pasa con cualquier otro idioma. Tenemos que aprender a controlar ese miedo o esa inseguridad.

La mayoría de la gente que conozco, castellana o inglesa, en algun punto dicen "Entiendo más de lo que lo hablo"

¿Verdad?

Answer 2

Mismo alfabeto, distintas pronunciaciones. "No es lo mismo escribir que hablar".

Answer 3

Spanish

Many "linked verbs" and learning which preposition to use for each.

Idioms, idioms, idioms.

Answer 4

How about get and phrasal verbs in English?

Spanish: getting used to saying marica and huebón every three words

Answer 5

I do agree with the very first post. My brain is having a hard time changing the structure of how I think in english to how I need to think in spanish. Lots to memorize when in comes to the different article , conjugations,etc.

Answer 6

Learning spanish for me was hard as a whole, but I wanted to learn spanish to be able to speak to my dear friends who do not know english very well. After learning all the ins and outs of spanish - conjugating verbs, remembering vocabulary and idiomatic expressions, reviewing extensive reading comprehension passages in spanish, and even PRONOUNCING spanish - the hardest part for me was to actually start SPEAKING spanish. I remember when I first started speaking spanish, I did not reflect what I wanted to say because I felt I had to settle for something different in order to say what I thought was gramatically correct. I would always pause to correct myself even though I knew what I was already saying was just fine, so in the spur of the moment, I could be quite terse. I don't have that problem now, and I have my friends and SpanishDict to thank for that. Talking to my friends in spanish and using spanish chat rooms really helped me to remember to have fun while learning spanish! I guess the hardest part of learning spanish is to say what you need to say - if you know it, then SAY it. Also, it's great to know general rules and vocabulary, but you need a nimble mind to apply those rules to unfamiliar problems. I'm brushing up for an AP spanish test and I'm going to ace it! YEAH!!!

Answer 7

You nailed most of my grievances with Spanish. Prepositions, pronouns placement is tricky. Sometimes Spanish reads like formal English because you can't put prepositions at the end of sentences.

Answer 8

Can I bump this thread?

Direct and indirect object pronouns. Oh my goodness!

Where to put them in a sentence, and that I have to remember to put them there.

Identifying object. vs. subject

I'm not worried about conjugation, I think it's just a matter of learning it bit by bit and getting used to it. I still make a lot of mistakes but it's very logical and not difficult to understand so it's nothing to worry about for me.

I'm only beginning and I'm sure there's loads of difficult things ahead. o.O

Poco a poco!

Oh and I don't think "radical stem changing verbs" are THAT radical.

I keep waiting for the day they're going to teach us about "conservative stem changing verbs".

Answer 9

It can be summarized by considering just one word:

English: beer
It only has one syllable, but it uses that stretched-out vowel sound with three different sounds in it, including the always difficult schwa, and ends in the swallowed "er" sound which is really tough for non-natives.

Spanish: cerveza
It has three syllables, and includes the really hard middle of the word r sound (even harder to get right than rolled rrs for me) right next to the v--neither of these sounds exist in English, so that's a really tough combination.

Kind of a toss up which one is harder, but just doing this analysis makes me want one.

• In my accent it has no schwa, just one sylable. /bi:r/ I find for me the Spanish Rs are all about controlling what part of my mouth my tounge hits.. and i have terrible aim! - rabbitwho Mar 15, 2011

Answer 10

It seems strange to me that the "articles", the most basic vocabulary, should cause so many problems - for learners of English and Spanish.

• Explaining why "the Pacific Ocean" is right and "the Mount Everest" is wrong puts this in perspective. - lorenzo9 Mar 15, 2011
• Some things just have "the" in their name, like "The Beatles" and "The Edge". :) but yeah learning the different ways we use articles is really tough, and so often they are silly and illogical and the majority of the time serve no purpose. - rabbitwho Mar 15, 2011