Espanol V.S. English

Question

I've often wondered whether English or Spanish is harder to learn. To answer this question, if you speak English but then learned Spanish, please tell me how long it took for you to become reasonably fluent at it.

If you speak Spanish but then learned English, please tell me how long it took for you to become reasonably fluent at it.

Please answer in terms of months. When I receive enough replies, I will average the answers and come up with an estimation.

Answer 1

My observations are that as a second language, English is one of the most difficult languages to learn - more than Spanish - because it changes faster than most, it´s full of idioms that are added almost every day, for every rule there are exceptions and lazy pronunciation is excepted within its usage.

So while Spanish is easier than English to learn as a second language, it is difficult to master.

Answer 2

I would say a year and a half... But I was totally immersed in the language in Peru, so I don't know if this is really a fair timetable.

Thank you for your answer! That is a very fair timetable, as you were practicing it every day! - 00ffada9, Dec 7, 2013

Answer 3

I'm conversational, but not fluent, in Spanish. My definition of conversational would be the ability to convey your desires and ideas. Fluency (in my definition) would be that one can say the same thing in three different ways for almost any phrase. It's taken me about a year and a half to get where I am, I see that there will be maybe another year until I'm fluent, so 30 months.

I think a better way to judge which is harder is by asking one person who is not a native speaker of either language to tell you which took them longer to learn and why.

That's a very good idea. However, I'm trying to get a large sample size. Thanks for your answer! - 00ffada9, Dec 7, 2013

Answer 4

I was living in Spain in 2010, taking lessons everyday and practicing almost all day, every day. People told me that on this program, it would take two years. Unfortunately, I left after one year. Now, I have one "intercambio" per week to keep building vocabulary and pronunciation. I used to come here every day. That helped. I need to come back.

Answer 5

I would have to say I'm slightly above "conversational", but less than "fluent". I have never really had a chance to be really immersed in the language, and I didn't take any formal classes, so I would say it took me 2-3 years to get to a conversational stage.