Are Spanish verb constructions harder to learn than English?
One big difference to get used to is the change of verb endings in Spanish instead of the mandatory use of subject pronouns as in English.
So in English we have pronoun + verb.
In Spanish we have verb + ending.
The English subject pronouns do not vary, so once you have learnt I, you, (he, she, it), we, you, they you are done. English verbs only usually vary in the third person singular present, where an 's' is added. English makes a lot of use of compound tenses with the present and past participles.
Spanish verb endings vary with tense, so there are a lot of them to learn! But they are the same for (he, she, it), the third person singular, which is also the same as 2nd person informal. So pronouns might be needed to avoid ambiguity. There are a lot more tenses, simple and compound, in Spanish.
The informal 2nd person singular used to exist in English - "thou". But it has practically disappeared over the last 300 years. "You" was formal singular or plural. Now English cannot distinguish between singular and plural "you", but the need to do that has led to lots of colloquialisms - e.g. "you all" in the USA in particular.
It's a fundamental difference in language structure; to a native Englishman, English naturally seems a lot simpler in this area, but would that be the case for someone Spanish speaking learning English?
1 Answer
Learning English is a bit of a nightmare for native Spanish speakers, unless there is exposure at an early age.
The verbs may not pose too much of a problem, although using "does" to form questions is difficult. Another difficulty is the 's with contractions, to say nothing of the 's with possessive.
Our past tense and past participles are the most challenging, verbally.
In my experience teaching English to English language learners, the hardest part is the pronunciation. English comes from the throat and is very guttural, with lots of grunts and buzzing noises that don't even begin to exist in Spanish.
The spelling is also totally nonsensical to a Spanish speaker.
This is not to say that learning Spanish is any walk through a rose garden either, but it seems to be easier to pick up as a second language than English is.
I'll be interested in what some others have to say on this...
