The hardest thing to learn in Spanish
What is the hardest thing for you to learn in Spanish? The hardest thing for me to learn and understand is the use of the word "se."
13 Answers
Verb conjugation!!!!!!
I used to feel the same way about se, but with some practice that's not really all that hard.
Just remember the RID acronym: Reflexive, Indirect, Direct. Pronouns are always in that order, and there can only be a maximum of two of them together. That helps a lot!
The hardest thing for me I think is verbs. There are so many, and so many forms. That too gets easier with practice, but I think I will be working on verbs for a very long time to come.
Remembering all of the verb conjugations, and where to put that darn direct object pronoun!!!!
Hola!
As a beginner I find grammar, making sentences the hardest thing to do. In october I will travel to Mexico. Having a conversation with a native will be the biggest challenge. Realy looking forward to that!
A conversation with natives
I would like to share something else with you. I think it's realy funny! It's because most of you are American or English. I'm from the Netherlands. In Holland we pronounce the Spanish roling r (rr) and J/G already, so that's easy for me. My uncle and stephdad are American, and they find these letters almost imposible to pronounce. It's funny to teach them some imposible to pronounce words :D. For example the Dutch word 'Scheveningen'.
Scheveningen - a Dutch city by the beach
I have found the concept of the subjunctive to be difficult Although I am starting to get it. The subjunctive mood is something which in English is not nearly as common as in Spanish. In some ways, I am still perplexed by it!
It's funny, but I liken learning languages to learning to play a musical instrument. When you first start, some things seem really daunting. After you've learned a bit, you forget how hard those first few steps were. Among starting guitar players learning how to play an F major chord is a huge hurdle. Once you know how to play a guitar, F major chords seem trivial.
At different points I'd say learning how to roll your R's, irregular verbs, the difference between ser and estar, reflexive verbs, subjunctive tenses, idioms, and so on, are all the hardest things to learn. For me right now it's building vocabulary. There are just so many darned words to learn.
Kevin said:
It's funny, but I liken learning languages to learning to play a musical instrument. When you first start, some thing seem really daunting. After you've learned a bit, you forget how hard those first few steps were. Among starting guitar players learning how to play an F major chord is a huge hurdle. Once you know how to play a guitar, F major chords seem trivial.
This is an excellent analogy. I would have to say I have my F major chord/indicative conjugations down. Now if I could only get those diminished chords/subjunctive conjugations down. 
I vote for the verbs and the se, but thanks for that acronym, Goyo. I am hoping that will help.
After all those good comments I feel silly, but the hardest thing for me is memorizing 3 or more syllable words. When I get a list of words I always work on the 1 and 2 syllable words first and then attack the longer words. It helps me to feel like I’m making progress! LOL
Teoría de cuerdas (string theory). Muy difícil de entender.
Let me clarify from real world experience. All the book work and grammar studies are of no use if you can't be understood. PRONUNCIATION
On one level I agree; if you can't be understood, nothing else matters. However, In my experience, very few people have a pronunciation that is so bad as to make what they say unintelligible. Their pronunciation may immediately brand them as foreigners or make it difficult to understand them but I've never come across situations in which poor pronunciation resulted in complete incomprehension. There are, of course, those who say to themselves "This is just too much trouble." (trying to get past the difficulties of pronunciation). Just as there are, I'm sure, those who think "Another **** gringo! Why should I bother with speaking to him?"
On the other hand, I've known people who have spent years in some Spanish-speaking country and who actually have a quite respectable command of the language but also have a strong foreign accent. Nobody would ever mistake them for native Spanish speakers but they communicate effectively.
Personally, I'm a pronunciation-freak. In part because it comes easily to me (especially with Spanish, since the pronunciation is so consistent [and, thus, easy to learn]).However, I've also known people whose Spanish (except for pronunciation) is much better than mine.
Let me clarify from real world experience. All the book work and grammar studies are of no use if you can't be understood.
PRONUNCIATION
Here are the 3 hardest things to learn in Spanish:
1) Pronunciation!
2) Pronunciation!
3) Pronunciation!
