how long should it take someone to learn spanish?
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5 Answers
That's pretty much like asking "how long should it take to learn how to ride a bike?". It depends, a lot. Some people with no prior knowledge of Spanish can understand basic questions and even mumble some short sentences in a few months. Other people keep making a lot of grammar and vocabulary mistakes even after living in Spain for many years, and never drop their thick foreign accent. It depends a lot on your own native language, the effort and time spent in learning, and of course the qualification of your teacher/s.
It depends a lot on your attitude towards the language, the method you are using, the time you're spending, and your ability, of course. Some estimates (eg. Foreign Service Institute) say that it takes about 300-600 hours for an easy language and over 2000 for harder ones (harder meaning different from your mother tongue.)
Now, 600 hours, if you spend 5 hours a week, means 2 years and nearly 4 months, but in practice, unless you are constantly practising, you are also constantly forgetting, and therefore you find yourself relearning the same stuff over and over again, so it will easily take a lot longer.
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I guess it depends on your definition of "Learning Spanish". What exactly do you want to know? Do you want to know how to speak and write it correctly? If so, it will take a lot longer to learn Spanish than it does to ride a bike. There are a lot of people here who ask questions about words, phrases, etc. Judging from the questions, you can tell that they have an advanced knowledge of Spanish, but they continue to learn. I am an American whose parents were born in Puerto Rico. I learned English in school, I continue to learn and review my English. I'm a beginner in Spanish, and while I study it daily, I'm sure it will be several years before I feel confident. But even then I will continue to learn Spanish.
Four weeks, three days, five hours, and twelve minutes exactly.
It took me one month to the day to grasp the spanish grammar (including the past subjunctive tense O.o) enough to feel confident verbaly building sentences in past, present, future and imperative tense. Not because I'm smart, (no more than average), but because of an unbelievable good educationalist.
I studied at the most 2 hours a day, and sometimes I did nothing for a couple of days in a row, so I'd say 1 hour a day grammar study, and constant flashcard studies of words. Also I have spanish songs and movies running all the time, listening both actively and passively.
So it depends, but es posible to get a grasp very quickly. I can follow cartoons in spanish with spanish subtitles and some simple spanish lyrics after a month and I can make myself understood with simple things.
To speak with greater confidence? I would guess years, like people say above.
